


i've found the one whom my soul loves

by ViolyntFemme



Series: kiss me [4]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Butterfly!Harry/Tequila, Crying During Sex, Eggsy/Tilde, Excessive Drinking, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Oral Sex, Pegging, Poor Life Choices, Recreational Drug Use, Roxy/Amelia, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, TGC fix-it, Tequila/Whiskey - Freeform, as in we have 50k words to get through before we even get to TGC canon, but not as much sex as I usually write?, canon violence, eggsy is the mother hen no one ever wanted, excessive grief, excessive swearing because it's me, happy ending for most but bittersweet for some, merlin/percival - Freeform, probably some other things I should tag too but i forgot, tequila is an angel, this is ignoring some of the stupid ass decisions that were made in TGC, whiskey is a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:46:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 108,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolyntFemme/pseuds/ViolyntFemme
Summary: Although it's been a year, Ian still grieves like it was yesterday.--------A TGC fix it because these boys deserve the happy ending I promised them a year ago. But only after 100K words of pain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To everyone who has been waiting for this and that are still here, hello and thank you for waiting. To everyone reading through the series for the first time, hello and welcome.
> 
> It's been just a hair under a year since Part 2 was posted and a lot has happened for me, but I never intended to leave our boys unhappy and apart. 
> 
> This is, as always, a completely finished work, coming in with nine chapters and a little under 110K words. It is self-betaed and not brit picked. I have edited the mess out of it, but I am sure I missed something along the way. I would be thrilled if you would point those things out. Also if I missed something I should have tagged, let me know that as well. I am posting this after editing the last few chapters so I'm a little much in the brain. 
> 
> Title is from Song of Solomon 3:4
> 
> Updates will be posted 1-3 times a week depending on how quickly I give each chapter a final read through. My goal is twice a week however :)
> 
> This work is part of a series and I really think it is best read when you read the fics in order as they draw heavily on each other.

**2014 - A few weeks after V-Day**

He wakes up to the sound of a machine beeping and a woman’s voice talking to him.

“I was telling Champ the other day that if you stay asleep much longer I am giving up hope for you, so you might be a gentleman about it and wake up for me.”

“Could I trouble you for some water?” he asks, jumping in alarm when the woman, a beautiful African-American woman judging from her accent, jumps with a small squeal and drops her clipboard.

“Good lord,” she says, her hand over her heart, “you almost gave me a heart attack.”

He tries for a smile. “Well, you asked that I wake up,” he says, “so I thought I would oblige you.”

She holds a cup with a straw in it to his lips which he sucks on, grateful for the moisture. She allows him half the cup before pulling it away.

“You’ve been without actual substance in your stomach for weeks, best to start off slow.”

“Where am I?”

“Kentucky.”

“America? What on earth am I doing here?”

Her eyes shift to the side. “Why don’t you tell me what you can remember and we will go from there.” She helps him sit up and gives him the cup.

He tries to reach back into his memories. He remembers anger? Something? He isn’t sure.

“I don’t think I remember anything.” He lifts his hand to his face. “Why is my face bandaged? What happened to me?” Hysteria rises in him. Who is he? _Where_ is he? “Why the hell am I here? What have you done to me?” He throws the blankets off. “I demand to speak to someone that can tell what the hell is going on here.”

The woman tries to push him back down on the bed. “Please remain calm. I am sure we can get this all figured out of you remain calm.”

“I will not remain calm. Get your hands off of me.” His instincts kick in and he moves in ways he does not understand, his right arm shooting out and catching the woman on her chin, knocking her back from him. She lands on her arse and she reaches up to her glasses.

“I could use a hand in here gentlemen,” she says to the empty room.

He stands above her, panting, his eyes… eye, darting around the room, searching for a weapon. He is angry. No, he is enraged. Flashes of something sift through his brain. A church. His hand holding a gun. Pain lances through his head. He grips it with both hands, moaning.

The door to his right opens and a man in denim comes in.

“What the fuck is this, Ginger? You woke him up?”

“He woke himself up Tequila.”

“Hey now,” the newcomer says, one hand held up in a gesture of peace, the other behind his back at the waist of his jeans, “no need to be an asshole to the lady. Why don’t you just settle the fuck down and get back in bed?”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself.”

“Now that isn’t very mannerly…”

_Manners maketh man._

“… is it?”

He falls to his knees as the pain in his head grows. His vision whites out and wetness trickles down his face from underneath the bandage covering his left eye. Red drops cover the floor in front of his knees. There is a high pitched sound buzzing through him, firing his synapses and he wants to hurt someone, anyone, if he could just get off his knees to do it. He presses his hands to his skull, pushing, pushing, pushing. The harder he pushes the louder it gets. He yells. Feet appear in his peripheral vision and he wants to lash out but he can’t take his hands away from his head. A needle pricks the back of his neck and he almost sobs in relief.

“Thank you,” he pushes past his teeth as he falls face first on to the floor.

—————

Harry wakes up in a white room. The bed he lies on, no, that he is tied to, is in the middle. To his right is a large mirror and a sink, with a toilet and shower is at the foot of the bed in the right-hand corner. Nothing is on his left. Lights illuminate the room from the walls and edges of the floor. The starkness hurts his head. The door opens and a woman steps through.

“Hello again,” she says stepping in but not coming close to the bed.

“Again? Have we met?”

“Only briefly, not surprising you don’t remember. Actually, what do you remember, about anything? Do you know your name, what happened to you?”

“My name is Harry Hart and I live with my parents outside of London on our family estate. I am eighteen and I am scheduled to begin university in the fall studying lepidoptery. Might I inquire as to who you are and why I am tied to a bed?”

“You can call me Ginger Ale.”

“You are named after a beverage?”

She laughs and smiles at him. “My parents must have had a strange sense of humor.”

“I should say.”

“As to where you are, you are in Kentucky, in America, and you are in a special place where we will help you get better.”

“Get better from what? What happened to me? When can I go home? Just call my mother and she will take care of everything. I want to go home.” Harry pulls against his bindings in agitation and Ginger takes one step back, her eyes flicking to the mirror. She holds up a hand towards it.

“We will, I promise. I want to talk to you about some things if you would like me to.”

Harry eyes her with distrust. “Could you untie me at least? This is absurd.”

“I would rather wait until we have finished our discussion. You may react rather badly.”

“To what?”

She produces a mirror from her pocket and walks over to him, putting in front of his face. He jumps when he realizes that the man he sees in the mirror is not the face he saw this morning after his morning routine, instead it is a man much older, his father’s age at least.

“This is some sort of trick, it has to be. I am eighteen. I’m certainly not _old_.”

“I wouldn’t call you old, Harry, but that is relative I suppose, since I figure you might be just a few years older than myself.” She smiles. “I want to explain things to you, if you are ready to listen.”

“I doubt I will ever be _ready_ , madam, but I think I had better listen, regardless.”

Ginger tells him all about the world going mad and how he was caught in the crossfire. He has lost an eye, and if their reckonings on his age are correct, about thirty years of his memories. Those, she said, may come back with time, as his brain continues to heal from the bullet that went through it.

After she undoes his restraints and leaves he strips down, ignoring the fact that the mirror he is now inspecting his very nude, and _old_ body in is a two-way mirror. He is not sure why he knows that, but he does. He looks at the scars that decorate his skin. If he has to remember why he has all of these, plus what he might have done during those moments of madness, perhaps he would be happier _not_ knowing who he was before his memories fell out of the hole in his head.

No, he knows he would be happier. He obviously did not become the lepidopterist he had planned on becoming.

—————

Eggsy lets the smoke escape out of his mouth syrup slow, enjoying the burn in his lungs and the earthy, damp smell of joint he has dangling between his fingers. He hears footsteps coming up behind him, small twigs snapping under them, so not Merlin and not Percival. He would never hear those two coming.

“Rox, I hope you brought me something to drink because I have got the worst case of cotton mouth ever.”

She wrinkles her nose but drops on the ground next to him, bespoke trousers and all, tucking her feet under her, handing him a thermos of tea and reaching out for the joint. He watches, wide-eyed, as she takes a deep hit like a pro. No coughing, no watering eyes, just drags and drags until he is wondering if he brought enough weed out here with him. He wasn’t expecting company, at least not company that smoked like she lived one flat down from him.

“Jesus, Rox, how d'you learn that in all them posh boarding schools you went to?”

“Eggsy,” she says, her voice low and tight, talking as she holds her hit in, “James, while being a drunk like every,” she exhales, “other agent, also enjoyed a nice, mellow smoke now and then. I was stealing from his stash so my girlfriends and I could get high by the time I was fourteen.”

“I am shocked, Miss Morton. My image of you is ruined. Now I’ll have to look up to Percival.” He takes a hit and passes it back before drinking some tea. “Fucking hell, that is good. You make the best tea, love.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re high.”

“Well, right now this is the best fucking tea ever.”

They finish the joint in silence. Eggsy laying on his back, his left arm tucked under his head, enjoying the fading sunlight through the leaves, Roxy sitting next to him.

“Do you think it’s a good idea for someone who hasn’t even gotten a place at the table to be out on Kingsman grounds getting high?”

“Should a newly minted agent be out here with me? What are they going to do, Rox? You think Merlin is going to tell me to hit the door? He’s running the show right now and he knows he needs me, as an agent, named or no, and as a friend. Fuck, have you seen him? He’s barely staying on his feet. Fucking worried about the twat.”

“I know, Uncle Ali is too. I'm worried about both. Seeing Merlin go through this is bringing up a lot for Uncle Ali again.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Fuck no…”

“Fucking hell, smoking and swearing? Percival is going to string me up by my fucking bollocks, corrupting his sweet girl like this.”

“Trust me, I have zero illusions of what kind of girl my niece is.”

Both of them fly to their feet. See? Never heard the fucker coming. Perce is a sneaky fuck, no two ways about it.

“Uncle Ali, we were just…”

“About to offer to roll another one if you’d like,” Eggsy finishes with a wink.

Percival, because Eggsy ain’t comfortable enough calling him Alistair, or Ali, regards him for a moment before he shrugs and takes a seat on the ground, with much less nose wrinkling than Rox. Eggsy plops back down and sets to rolling a joint, lights it, passes it to Perce, and rolls another, passing it to Rox. Fuck it, no one can ever say Eggsy Unwin doesn’t know how to smoke his mates fucking up, yeah?

Because Perce is a gentleman, he doesn’t mention Rox voicing her concerns over him, and after both joints are halfway gone, he is pretty sure they have both forgotten about it. He chills with them for about an hour, telling some funny story that Eggsy can’t follow to save his life, but it still has Eggsy laughing hard enough to make his ribs ache. Granted they ache from V-Day, but still. Then as suddenly as he showed up, he stands, thanks Eggsy, kisses Rox on the forehead who blushes so hard it sets Eggsy off all over again, and melts back into the trees.

“I think I might really like him. Like as a person and shit. Still wouldn’t want to turn my back on him, but he seems like a bit of alright.”

“Uncle Ali is wonderful. Strict, at least he was when I was growing up. James was the one who was more fun. I think Uncle Ali wanted to be the fun one, but he had to balance out James somehow. He’s loosened up a lot.”

Eggsy shudders to think what he was like ten years ago if this is Perce “loosened up.”

“Why are you out here, alone, getting wasted, anyway?” Rox asks, pulling at the grass under than in what she thinks is a nonchalant way. Note for Merlin. Don’t let Rox get high for a mission because her poker face goes right out the fucking window. “Wouldn’t it be more fun with Ryan and Jamal?”

“It would, but Ryan didn’t make it out of V-Day,” he says, concentrating on keeping his voice even. Because it’s his fault Ryan is dead. He wasn’t fast enough getting fucking Valentine’s slimy fucking mitt off the damn table so one of his best mates is fucking dead. Add it to the rest of Eggsy’s screw ups. Fucking Christ.

“Oh, fuck, I am so sorry Eggs.”

“Jamal told me he was coming home from the new job he got. Just got paid and was going to take Jamal and the new bloke Jamal is seeing out for a few drinks to celebrate. The first signal hit and where the fuck were you going to run in the Estates. Fuck, when that signal gets you, you don’t want to run, you just want to hurt someone. So when everything went to shit he got right in the middle of it and got a glass shard to his eye. Jamal and his bloke Liam only made it out because they were out in the woods fucking like the perverts they are.” Eggsy does a cross between a sniffle and a laugh.

Rox slides closer to him and puts his arm around his shoulders, pulling his head into her lap and brushing her fingers through his hair.

“That’s the stuff, Rox. Fingernails of gold you got.”

She smiles at him.

“I guess I figured I’d come out here and just forget about it for a while. Maybe think about some good memories of Ryan, and Harry. Couldn’t get to Ryan’s funeral because of all the clean up we are doing. Visited his grave though with Jamal. Had a good cry together, got piss drunk, shouted at Ryan and then each other. Liam had to come get us because we were too fucked to walk.”

“And I had to come out here and bring it all up,” she says, sighing.

He grabs the hand that is resting on his shoulder, kisses it, and holds it over his heart, covering it with his own. “Nah, Rox, I’m glad you came out. Never knew you smoked, though now that I do we’ll be doing this more often, yeah? But I ain’t talked about Ryan, or Harry with anyone besides Jamal. Feels good to talk about them, to think about them. Ryan I got a fuck ton of memories of, but Harry? A year of a few times together. I miss him so much that I fucking look like him now. I wish I would have known him better. I want to ask Merlin about him, but it’s too soon, you know?”

“I do. I felt the same way about James. I mean, I had him for most of my life but I only knew him as a parent. I wish I could have known him as a man, as an adult, like I am getting to know Uncle Ali now, but I can’t ask him about James either. He talks about him but it’s hard.”

“Me and you, Rox? We are going to live forever. They are going to knight me and we are going to be the most bad arse fuckers this place has ever seen, yeah? We are going to take care of Merlin and Perce when they are shitting themselves and forgetting who they are. We’ll give Merlin an Etch-a-Sketch so he thinks he has his clipboard and build pillow forts for Perce to play sniper from. You’ll be Arthur, I’ll be your sword, and it will be fucking aces.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“It fucking better, babe. I’ve lost too fucking much. I ain’t ever losing you. You and Jamal are my best fucking mates,” he squeezes her hand, “and I ain’t ever losing either of you. I can’t.”

—————

**Two months after V-day**

For the first time in weeks Merlin lets himself into the house Harry and he shared until fifty-three days, six hours, and twenty-two minutes ago. Until Harry had gone to Fuckstick, Kentucky and died in while Merlin watched and spent the last few moments they had together telling Harry how much he loved him.

Nothing has changed. Mr. Pickle still sits sentinel in the loo. Harry’s suits are still in the wardrobe. The book he was reading is still on the bedside table. Whenever Merlin has cleaned, because he does it himself now, unable to bear the thought of anyone except for Eggsy or Alistair in the house, he disturbs nothing that Harry had placed somewhere except to dust it.

With the book on the table, the glasses folded next to it, and slippers tucked under his side of the bed, the house is more of a mausoleum than a home any more. It’s just Merlin haunting it instead of Harry.

On his way to the kitchen he makes himself a drink. Four fingers since no one is there to see him and going to bed blind drunk is the only way he can sleep when he’s here. In the kitchen he opens up the fridge. He knows that if he’s going to make headway into the newest box of whiskey he just had delivered he needs to eat something.

Eggsy has been over while Merlin has been working himself to death. In the fridge, and he knows there are more in the freezer, are containers labeled in his small, blocky writing. Roast, lasagna, curry, etc., with heating instructions because Merlin is not a grown man who can take care of himself.

He glances down at the now empty glass he holds in his hand and thinks about the meal of cereal he was going to have. Perhaps Eggsy has a point. He pulls out the curry and heats the oven.

“You’d be so proud of the man the lad has become, Harry,” he says to the empty house. “A consummate Kingsman, and if I am being honest, the walking doppelgänger of you. Without the hair, of course. I don’t think I could have stood it had he had the hair.” He pours himself another drink. “I feel daft talking to you like this, like you are just around the corner, just out of sight, but I can’t bear not talking to you either. I don’t know who is haunting who anymore.”

Another drink.

Curry.

A bottle. Three.

Harry is helping him up the stairs.

“Harry, love, when did you get home?” he slurs out, dragging a finger down Harry’s face. His skin is soft and young under Merlin’s hand. “Did you not want me handling you? I apologized, Harry, I don’t see why you can’t forgive me.” He wonders if Harry would let him kiss him, like they used to kiss. Merlin wants to so badly. He reaches for Harry’s face.

Harry looks up at him, his expression sad. “Merlin, mate, it’s Eggsy. I got worried when you didn’t answer the phone, yeah? Came over, make sure you haven’t blown you and Mr. P up.”

Merlin’s breath hitches in his chest when it’s Eggsy’s voice and not the one he would carve out his own heart to hear once more. He stumbles. “You look so much like him, lad. Every time I see you it’s like a knife straight through me.”

“Merlin,” Eggsy says, grabbing him as he sways, “you’ve got to st…”

Merlin wakes the next morning feeling with the worst hangover he can ever remember, and considering he gets blackout drunk at least once a week, that is saying something. He sits up in the bed, the guest bed, in nothing but his pants, and tries to piece together the night. He remembers coming and and talking to Harry while dinner cooked, the dinner Eggsy made for him. He remembers walking around the house for what seemed to be hours, talking, yelling. Eggsy showed up at some point and he almost kissed the boy thinking he was Harry come back. He looks down at himself and realizes he has no clue who undressed him.

 _Christ._ What a fucking mess this all is. That _he_ is.

He stumbles down the stairs so he can get a drink. Hair of the fucking dog. Harry would be proud, the alcoholic that he was. Somehow he always made it look classy. Merlin just ends up looking like he slept in a bin.

On the table is the entire box of whiskey he just had delivered, each bottle empty and gleaming in the sunlight. One the table is a glass of water and painkillers.

_I’ll do it every fucking night if I have to, and so will Alistair. Harry wouldn’t want this._

_~E_

The full glass of water goes sailing into the wall, narrowly missing a painting that Harry hated yet refused to take down. He swings a bare arm out and the bottles crash to the floor.

“What the fuck do you know what he would’ve wanted?” he yells.

He is on his knees on the floor, sobbing, the glass cuts his hands.

Merlin arrives back at the manor a few hours later. No one mentions the bandages, the sour smell of alcohol that trails after him, the way his hands have begun to shake. Eggsy walks into Avalon, Alistair right behind him, and Merlin turns his back on them, going to his office and locking the door.

He tells himself he’s too angry to see them right now. He knows it’s that he’s too ashamed.

Three days later, when he braves the house again, he isn’t surprised to see that someone, or someones, have put the dining room to rights.The rug and wood floors are clear of blood, the glass has disappeared, and the house once more is that neat, old lady fusspot aesthetic that Harry loved and Merlin hated but lived with it because it made Harry happy. He has days when he wants to burn it to the ground because he can’t look at it anymore without feeling like his heart is being torn out fresh.

Merlin goes upstairs to get some fresh clothes. While up there he spends a few moments running his hand over the shoulder of one of Harry’s suits. He takes out a few of the ties of his own that he has packed and exchanges them for some of Harry’s more somber ones. They still carry the scent of Harry’s cologne. He swaps a few of his socks for Harry’s less somber ones.

When he gets back downstairs, he waffles about for a moment, part of him begging to stay. To sleep in their bed, to take a bath with that ridiculous bubble bath Harry loved if only to be able to close his eyes and imagine Harry there with him.

But he knows, he knows that he either drinks and stays or doesn’t drink as _much_ and goes. And since Mothers Superior Eggsy and Alistair seem to find his drinking _excessive_ right now, and he doesn’t fucking feel like listening to it, he goes.

Merlin is back a few nights later, whiskey bottles in tow and before he even starts he locks the house down with his own personal protocols. Not even Avalon, not even Igraine, could hack these. Later that night while he is on the living room floor, crying over photos, three bottles in, he laughs when he hears Alistair pounding on the door. He turns the music up and keeps drinking.

—————

Merlin walks through the door, takeaway and alcohol in hand, to find that the house is not as empty as it should be. Inside the loo, sitting on the floor, is Eggsy. A pile of drunken Eggsy in terrible sportswear.

“Hey, Merls,” Eggsy slurs, “didn’t plan on getting so hammered I can’t move. Let me just sober up a little and I’ll get out of your hair.” Eggsy giggles to himself and takes another pull off the bottle he is holding by the neck.

Merlin sighs and pulls Eggsy to his feet. “Come on lad, up you get,” he says as he maneuvers Eggsy to the couch.

“Sit here. I’m going to get you some food.”

“And more alcohol.”

“I’m getting myself some more alcohol. I think you have had enough,” Merlin says as he goes into the kitchen to plate the food.

“Merls… Meeeerrrrls,” Eggsy calls, “are you going to send me to Siberia for calling you that?”

“I’m considering it.”

“Don’t be like that. It’s a sign of affection when I give you a nickname, yeah. Merls, Haz, Roxalot.”

“Nothing for Alistair?” Merlin asks as he comes back into the room, taking the bottle from Eggsy and replacing it with food.

“Fuck no, he is scarier than you. Our last mission together he took out an entire fucking room of blokes without even breaking a sweat. He turns to me,” Eggsy chews and then gestures with his fork, “he turns to me, fucking arterial spray all over his suit and his face, and he fucking smiles like he’s the damn Smiling God, all teeth and points. I remember thinking, _Oh god, Perce has finally cracked and I’m next._ I knew I couldn’t take him so I was trying to figure out how I could get the fuck away when he just wipes the blood from his face with his pocket square and walks out. On the plane home he was cleaning his nails with his knife and discussing fucking brunch with Rox over the glasses. I love the guy, don’t get me wrong, but fuck me if he ain’t one step away from being a serial killer.”

“I’ll tell him that. He will take it as a compliment.”

“Ain’t surprised, bruv.”

Eggsy finishes his food and goes back to his bottle. Merlin takes it from him and pours him a drink in a glass. “We can at least pretend we're civilized, Eggsy.”

“Whatever you say,” he replies, taking the glass from him.

“Are you planning on telling me why you are drunk in my house, Eggsy? Or shall I just chalk up as one of your colorful eccentricities?”

Eggsy blushes a furious red. “I was missing Harry, and since the loo is the last time I spoke to him, I guess I feel closer to him in there. Usually I am gone before you get home. Got a little carried away.” He jiggles his glass.

“In the loo?” Merlin’s eyebrows crawl up his forehead.

“That’s where we fought before he… left.” Eggsy frowns into his glass. “I sometimes sit there after I bring your sorry arse some food and tell him about all the things I am doing in Kingsman, and what I want to do if I don’t get to stay.”

“You’ll stay if it’s the last thing I do, Eggsy. We _will_ take care of you.”

Eggsy shrugs. “I let him down, Merlin, and I just wish he could see that I done better than what he thought I could. I wish I had a chance to make him proud.”

Merlin leans across the couch to squeeze Eggsy’s bicep. “Eggsy, lad, I have told you this. Harry was a good man. He was wonderful and handsome and the love of my life. _And_ he was a vicious fucking piece of shit when he was angry. He was proud of you then and before he went to Kentucky he told me how terrible he felt for saying what he did to you.”

It hurts to see the bright hope in Eggsy’s eyes that what Merlin is saying is true.

“He always knew what to say to cut you to the quick, and he would say it just to get some of his own back, but he never meant it.”

Eggsy’s lip trembles. He tries to hide it by knocking back the rest of his drink.

“Sorry, Merlin,” he says, his voice thick, “I know I ain’t got no right missing him or crying over him when I am sitting next to you.”

“That’s a load of bollocks if I ever heard it. What you had with Harry doesn’t even come close to the history, the love, between him and I, but that doesn’t mean you are not mourning him as well, lad. He would feel honored to know you still thought of him.”

“Every day. Every day I think of him and wonder what he would think of me now.”

“He would be proud, Eggsy. You surpassed all expectations he had. You are one of the best we have right now.”

Eggsy sobs into his hands and Merlin scoots over to put an arm around his shoulders with minimal awkwardness. When it sounds as if he is getting himself under control, Merlin fetches him a cool flannel and fucks off to make sure the guest is suitable for use.

When he comes back down stairs Eggsy, although red-eyed and puffy-faced, has stopped crying and is back to drinking.

“Sorry about that Merlin,” he mutters when Merlin sits down.

“Hardly the first time these walls has seen someone crying over Harry. Fuck knows I do it at least twice a week.”

“Tell me something about him,” Eggsy says and then seems to rethink the request when he sees Merlin’s face. “God, I’m sorry. I’m just going to go, yeah? Fuck.”

“He and I met during the Galahad trials,” Merlin says after taking a deep breath. “If you can imagine Harry thirty years younger, all legs and curls, and he should have looked ridiculous but to me he was the most breathtaking man I had ever seen, although you couldn’t have gotten me to admit it with a gun to my head.”

Eggsy sits back down, pours them both another measure of whiskey and Merlin talks.

Later, when Eggsy has stumbled off to the guest, Merlin remains on the couch, finishing the bottle.

“You’re a right fucking prick for dying like you did, Harry,” he says to the empty room. “That boy up there thinks you shit sunbeams and that he can never live up to the person you wanted him to be. I, on the other hand, know that of all the things you shit, it certainly wasn’t sunbeams, yet know that I will never find another man to replace you. I don’t even want to.

“I hope you’re happy, where ever the fuck you are, watching the people that love you try to get through each day with the big fucking hole you left in our lives. I’d hate you if I didn’t love you so goddamned much, you prissy peacock.”

—————

Ginger automatically hits the button that turns the two-way mirror into a window rather than a white wall as she walked into the small lab that was attached to Harry’s room. She had expected to see him hunched over his desk working on the steady supply of books and butterflies they kept him busy with but he was not. She walked right up to the mirror and turned on the sound. She still couldn’t see him, but now she could hear him. He was somewhere in the room and he was crying.

She went right to the door of the room, inputting the code to open it, and entering. Harry was sitting on the floor to the left of the sink, knees drawn up to his chest, as if he was making himself as small as he could. He was sobbing into his knees.

“Harry?” she calls, her voice soft. She comes no closer than three feet away. She keeps the door open. Just because he may not consciously know who he is, she knows for a fact he does subconsciously.

He startles, jumping to his feet, which makes her take two steps back, and grabbing a washcloth to clean his face with.

“My apologies that you had to see me like this.” He wipes his face, pulling himself together and putting on a blank, if attentive face. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She does not take those two steps froward again but stays where she is. “I was actually coming in to see if I could help you, Harry.”

He laughs, but it is devoid of happiness, an empty thing that falls between them and lies dead. “What were you thinking of helping me with, madam? Were you going to help me finally get dressed in clothes that an actual adult would wear, or shall I keep wearing these lovely cotton trousers and t-shirt? Perhaps you would like to help me find some shoes, or are you all so enamored with the sight of my feet you couldn’t bear to see them covered? Or, maybe, you would like to help me move into a room where I have some actual fucking privacy where I can shower or shit without someone watching me?”

“Harry, you know why I can’t do any of those things.”

“No, I do not,” he says, firing the washcloth into the sink. “I know what you tell me, that I am a danger to myself and others, but I have yet to see any evidence of this.”

“You don’t remember waking up tied to your bed again?”

“Of course I do, I just do not remember these violent episodes that come before. For all I know, you could be lying to keep me here. What proof do I have?”

“Why would I be doing that?” Ginger asks.

“I don’t know,” Harry yells, advancing a step. In two months, Ginger has learned the signs that signal a breakdown, and extreme loss of temper is one. She angles her back to the door, the movement barely noticeable, but she can see that Harry sees it whether he knows it or not. “I don’t know why it has been two months and I have yet to hear anything about me leaving other than I can’t because you say I am too dangerous. I don’t know why you, or those men, come in and talk to me, looking expectant like I have something to say of interest. I don’t know why I know I am eighteen but I look over fifty. I know _nothing_.”

He takes another step forward and she takes one back. The door is three steps behind her. Hart is quick, but she thinks she has a decent chance of getting away. His face becomes more blank than it was a few moments ago. Rage gone, emotion gone, his eyes flat, his back straight and his shoulders back. He looks assured, confident, lethal. Different than the crying man of just moments ago. One hand makes a practiced motion to his left as if reaching for a holstered gun. He doesn’t seem to register the movement.

Forward one.

Back one. And one more.

The cooler air from the hall brushes against her neck. One step back and she is out. He lunges. She takes it, going out backwards, hitting the emergency lock down button and then the one that will fill the room with gas, which while harmless, will put him on his ass for at least four hours. In his eyes she sees cognizance.

“Who are you? What agency do you work for? Tell me while you are here with me,” she pleads through the glass. “Tell me and I will contact them.”

“If you think I am telling you that, you're mad. You cannot keep me in here,” Harry says, his voice rigid. “I will get out and you will answer for this.” He holds her gaze until his eyes roll back into his head and he slumps to the floor.

—————

Eggsy is just getting in the door of his rooms when his phone rings.

“You got Eggsy,” he says.

“Hello, Eggsy. It’s Tilde.”

“As if I couldn’t tell from that adorable accent,” he answers, smiling to himself. “What can I do for you, Princess? Got yourself locked up in some room again and need me to come save you?”

“Hush, I didn’t need saving at all. I would have gotten out.”

“Really, just waiting around then, seeing if some handsome young man would come and _rescue_ you?”

“Is that what you call it?”

“I call it a bloody good time, that is what I would call it.”

Tilde laughs, a deep guffaw and Eggsy loves it. After they had, not to be delicate about it, fucked like bunnies all over that comfortable bed she had in her cell, he was surprised to find out that Tilde was nothing like he expected her to be. On the plane ride back to her palace she drank Eggsy under the table, told jokes so dirty they made him blush and Roxy choke on her tea, and even got Merlin to crack a smile which was enough to make Eggsy want to give her the world. He wonders if she would consider coming back out to London to try it again.

“I called you for a reason, you know.”

“Booty call. I figured,” Eggsy says as he strips off his dusty suit. He had just gotten back from the Middle East, more post V-Day clean up, and he swears he brought back half the countries he was in on him. No one believes that sand gets everywhere, but it does. Eggsy is sure he’ll be _shitting_ it for weeks.

“Yes. In a way.”

“Pardon?” Eggsy asks as he trips over his shoes and lands in an heap on the floor. “Fuck, ow.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, just you know, mission injuries and all,” he answers as he rubs the knee he just jammed against the wood floor on his way down to it.

“Ah, yes, my own personal Secret Agent Man. It’s very sexy, you know.”

“I know.”

“Modest too.”

“A paragon of virtue, I am. So’s what all this about a booty call? I mean it’s a little late to be flying out to Sweden.”

“God, no, Eggsy. I’m not fucking you in the same wing as my parents.”

“ _In the same wing as my parents…”_ Eggsy mouths to himself in disbelief. Who the fuck has wings in their homes? Eggsy was happy to have a fucking _room_ in his old flat.

“I am coming to London on Friday and I wondered if you would care to join me for dinner and regale me with all your tales of you saving the world, and then perhaps I might let you ‘regale my tail.’”

Eggsy laughs. “Tilde, love, that was truly horrible. Truly.”

“It was, but it made you laugh. So would you care to join me?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Three nights later he is lying in bed with Tilde, her soft, naked body wrapped around him as she sleeps, while he indulges in one of her cigarettes and drags his fingers through her hair. He likes Tilde. He likes her _a lot_ , like more than some scruffy little pleb should like a fucking Crown Princess. He’s always said, and believed, that posh girls love a bit of rough, and rough always like the posh back, but secret fucks in four-star hotel rooms are one thing. Taking the chav home to meet the King and Queen is nug off of a different plant, yeah?

The cigarette burns his finger tips and he stubs it out in the crystal ashtray that is next to the bed. He considers his options. He could wake Tilde to see if she fancies another go, he could slide out of under her, get some of that lovely wine they was drinking, and nick a another smoke, or he could curl around her just as tight, and go to sleep with the lavender scent of her hair in his nose.

He has a thing for how her hair fucking smells. He edges out from under her, that realization making him uncomfortable and sad.

Eggsy grabs another cigarette from her pack, pours a glass of wine, and goes over to the balcony door, opening it to let some air in. He stands there, nude because they’re on the fuck off top floor and no one can see him from anywhere. Besides, sometimes it’s nice just to have your cock out.

He sniggers to himself. He is such a douche sometimes.

He hears Tilde slip out of bed and feels the press of her warm breasts as she wraps her arms around him from behind.

“Eggsy. It is cold. Why are you standing here with nothing on? You cock will fall off. I should be helpful and keep it warm,” she says as she slips both hands down his stomach to cradle it.

He reaches down and covers her small hands with one of his own. “Jesus,” he breathes when she squeezes. “I have a few ideas of some other places it can warm up as well.”

“That is what I like about you, Eggsy Unwin, you are so very smart.”

“May not have all that posh schooling that you did, love, but I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet.”

She kisses his shoulder. “Posh schools. Tutors and servants taught me. The only people I ever saw of my own age were relatives or servant’s children, and they were too worried about offending the Princess to treat me normally.”

“Still though, we’re different, me and you.”

“We are, and I like it.”

“Your ‘bit of rough,’ yeah?” he asks, laughing to hide his discomfort. “A sure thing, me.”

She takes her hands off him and turns him around. She takes the cigarette, takes a drag and then throws it off the balcony.

“Jesus, Til, you’ll hit someone with it.”

“Eggsy, is that what you think this is? A quick fuck? Do you think I need to call you if I am just looking for a fuck?”

“No, babe, but what else can it be? I’m a pleb spy, you’re a princess.”

“I don’t give a shit who we are. I _like_ you, Eggsy, but if you just see this as sex maybe we should say good night.” She steps back from him, her face closed.

“Til, no, babe, don’t be like that. I like you too, a lot. I fucking like the way your hair smells and how you can drink me under the table and how you don’t give a shit about the fact your fucking royalty and all, but I don’t think I'm good enough for you. I _am_ the boy your parents warned you about.”

“Good thing I never listened to them. I like you, you like me, and the fucking is good. Let’s worry less about how we can work and just see if we do.”

“So, you want to, like date me?” Eggsy asks, grinning. “I mean, I don’t blame you and all, but, I’m still surprised.”

“Well, we went about it a little backwards, but yes, Eggsy, I would very much like to 'date' you. I would also very much like to fuck you.”

“Come here and get those gorgeous fucking legs around my waist so we can make that dream a reality.”

Instead of coming to him she walks over to her luggage and rummages through it, pulling out a harness and a dildo.

“No, I said I wanted to fuck _you_ , so why don’t you come over here and put your legs around my waist? I thought all you English boys liked the buggery.”

Eggsy laughs so hard he bends double, tears streaming down his face. “ _The buggery_. My days, Til, you are a fucking scream without even trying.”

“Oh, I am sure I can make you scream, spy boy, unless you aren’t man enough to take it.”

“Til, if you think I ain’t never been fucked in the arse before, I have some stories to tell you.”

Her eyes brighten. “Oh good! I love dirty stories.” She straps the harness on and the pink cock bobbles between her legs. She grabs a tube from her suitcase and lays down on the bed, patting the mattress. “Come here and you can tell me all about them while I get you ready.”

When Tilde leaves two days later, Eggsy thinks his cock might be drained dry for the rest of his life and he might not be able to sit until he’s at least forty. He knows he won’t stop smiling before then. Tilde leaves him with a kiss to the cheek, a grope to the arse, and a promise to call him that week.

Eggsy has a girlfriend. A fucking Princess. What the _fuck_ is his life?

—————

**Three months after V-day**

“Welcome, sir,” Merlin says, ushering the new Arthur into the Table room. “I’m Merlin, and when you're ready, we can schedule a full table meeting.”

Arthur is most likely much like every Arthur before him. A wealthy, very white, very old English gentleman who likes his whiskey neat, his women young, and his underlings compliant. Merlin affixes a look of polite attentiveness on his face and waits for his orders.

“Ring someone for some tea,” Arthur says, waving his hand at Merlin, “for both of us, and tell me you have some fucking drink somewhere in this overly large excuse for a bed and breakfast.” Arthur moves here and there, rummaging about in the cupboards, moving bottles around while Merlin stands there open-mouthed. “Merlin,” Arthur says, raising his voice.

Merlin jumps. “Sir?”

“Tea, alcohol, now. And then we will sit down and you are going to tell me what in the bloody fuck I am supposed to be doing. I only got the position because no one wanted it and I drew the short straw, but I’ll be damned if I will do it poorly.”

Merlin shakes himself, orders the tea tray, and then goes to Arthur’s office to fetch the very expensive whiskey Chester kept there for himself. Once he is back, he spends two hours going over the agent rooster, current financials, Avalon priorities, and all the piddly shit a leader has to know about. By the end Merlin has to admit he might actually like this Arthur.

“Is there anything else pressing before we call our first meeting?”

“Actually, yes. The matter of Eggsy, Arthur.”

Arthur pushes his glasses up his nose. They have the most distracting habit of falling down. “Eggsy? What is an Eggsy?”

“Who. Eggsy Unwin is the lad who was the late Galahad’s proposal. Without him we would have never known about King’s betrayal or been able to take out Valentine. He failed the dog test but since then he has more than proven himself a Kingsman. However, without a sitting Arthur I could not make him a knight even if I have been using him as one.”

Arthur hums to himself. “And is he here or is he out in the field?”

“Here, just made it in last night.”

“Excellent. Send all related mission feeds and files for Eggsy to my desk. I’ll look them over tonight and make my decision tomorrow. We will have a full meeting of all available agents, home and abroad at ten.”

“Very good, Arthur.” Merlin makes to stand. “If there is nothing else, I should let you get settled in to your office.”

“Yes. Might there be some more of this whiskey in there?” Arthur says, taking another drink from his tea cup which had ceased to hold tea three drinks ago, and smacking his lips.

“I wouldn’t know, but I have heard that King kept a well-stocked bar in a secret alcove in the office. I also wouldn’t know that if you pull the fourth book on the second shelf to the right of the windows that this alcove would open.”

Arthur laughs to himself. “Very good, very good.” Merlin inclines his head and heads to the door.

“One more thing, Merlin, if you would indulge me.”

“Of course,” Merlin says as he turns back to his new king.

“I have heard that you and the late Galahad were married. Is this true?”

Merlin’s spine stiffens and he feels cold in the pit of his stomach. His voice frosts the air when he speaks.

“Not spouses officially, no, but close enough. Will this be a problem?”

Arthur sits at the table, calm with his hands clasped in front of him. Merlin gives it to the man, lesser ones had looked away when they say the expression that Merlin knows is on his face.

“No, it will not. I wanted to simply offer my condolences for your loss and commend you for keeping this place running during what was, what is, a time of great personal pain. I lost my wife to V-Day so I know what it does. If you need any time off or anything now that we're stabilized, do not hesitate.”

Merlin clears his throat. Twice. “Thank you, Arthur, but it is best that I keep working.”

“Yes, I thought you would say that. But the offer stands.”

Merlin inclines his head once more. “Good evening, Arthur. I will put out the call to the agents tonight and the information regarding Eggsy will be waiting for you in just a few moments. Please contact me if you need anything else pertaining him.”

Once back in his office he sends the call out via glasses for the Table meeting. As expected Eggsy texts him immediately.

_Do I have a chance or will he hate me like everyone else does?_

_He’s not bad, Eggsy, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt. And not everyone hates you. Majority of the table respects you, and most like you. Haven’t figured out why yet._

_Fuck off. Well, if he ain’t any good I can take the fucker out like I did the last._

Merlin laughs. _Let’s keep that idea between you and me. I don’t want you killed for insubordination before you even have the chance to become a knight._

_Just saying, Merlin. But I’ll be on my best behavior, yeah? Polish myself up all nice and shit._

_I expect no less, lad. But be yourself as well. Harry brought you to Kingsman because you are the change he believed in. Don’t cheapen it by just trying to cram yourself into these arsehole’s mold._

Ellipses appear and disappear three times before the next text comes in.

_I’ll do my best, for him and you._

Eggsy doesn’t text for the rest of the night.

\----------

Merlin is standing behind Arthur as the knights file in and begin to appear over the glasses. Eggsy sits to the right of Arthur in Harry’s former seat. He is wearing the suit he had made like the one Harry had made for him, an exact copy of Harry’s own because he was a narcissistic prick. Merlin finds it hard to even look at him. Every time the light glints off Eggsy’s hair Merlin feels his heart crack anew.

“Good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. My name is Charles Denby and the Board has appointed me as the new Arthur. As a member of the Board for years, I am familiar with most of you, but I will schedule meetings with each of you so that I may talk to you privately as well.

“I am much different than my predecessor. I encourage every one of you to take an active role in your missions rather than blindly following my orders. If you see an issue with the mission before or during, I expect you to say something. I expect you to make your own decisions in the field within reason. I expect you to use your brains.

“Now, Merlin has informed me that we currently have six vacancies at the table. We will fill these three at a time so that we are up and running at full speed as soon as possible. Beaumains, Gareth, and Galahad being the first filled. To expedite this process I expect each of you to submit candidates to myself and Merlin by the end of the day tomorrow.”

Merlin sees Eggsy’s shoulders fall and his hands clenches into a fist where it sits in his pocket. Roxanne’s eyes cut from Eggsy to Arthur and narrow, her lips pressed in a flat line.

“I expect two from each of you and I want to…”

Accolon’s hand raises. “Excuse me, Arthur, you said two? We have three openings for the first round.”

“Yes, we do, and had you let me finish,” Merlin sees Roxanne and Eggsy share a look and a small smile, “I was going to propose that Mr. Unwin take the Galahad seat.”

Eggsy’s smile disappears and his face pales. Merlin wonders if the lad will faint until he squares his shoulders and looks at Arthur.

“All in favor, say 'Aye.'” Everyone but Accolon and the new Kay respond, which isn’t surprising as Kay was Accolon’s proposal in the cohort after V-day. All in favor say ‘Nay.’” Accolon and Kay answer.

“Majority rules…”

“Arthur, if I may speak to you alone for a moment.”

“You may say whatever you think is so important that you need to interrupt me for a second time in front of the table. And since I assume it concerns Mr. Unwin, I would also hope that you have the bollocks enough to say it to his face.”

Eggsy turns to Accolon with an attentive look on his face but his eyes dance with laughter. Alistair also swivels in his chair to look at Accolon, who seems to lose some of his bluster when he meets his eyes.

“With respect, I do not think that Mr. Unwin belongs at the table.”

“Your reasoning?” Arthur asks, clasping his hands together and leaning forward.

“He failed the dog test, which as we know, tests loyalty to Kingsman. He is not one of us, and our missions require us to move in circles that someone of Mr. Unwin’s background could not move in. Before the meeting I reviewed his mission logs and found his performance lackluster and mediocre.”

Alistair cocks his head and Kay scoots his chair a little further away from Accolon. “If we are opening the floor to debate, I would like to add something, with your permission, Arthur,” he says when he turns back to face Arthur.

“Of course, Percival. And Accolon, perhaps you should write Percival’s words down for future reference as an appropriate way to ask for permission to speak.”

“I, _with respect_ ,” he says, glaring at Accolon, “disagree with your assessment of Eggsy. Since V-Day I have had the pleasure of going out on two missions with him and I was nothing short of impressed. He blended in seamlessly at a social function filled with the elitist crowd that we so often find ourselves surrounded by.” Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. “As far as his performance as an agent, one only has to watch his mission logs to see that he is lethal in the field, but never overly so, tempering the need to complete the mission with the safety of civilians. I would take him on a two agent mission before I took other, more seasoned, members of the table.”

“Hear, hear,” Gwaine says before muttering, “apologies, Arthur.” Arthur waves them off.

“Would anyone else like to add anything regarding Mr. Unwin’s admittance to the table? Kay, perhaps?”

Kay looks at Alistair again and shakes his head, ignoring the flinty glare Accolon is giving him.

“No? Then I will give my reasoning behind admitting Mr. Unwin to the table. Despite him failing the dog test Mr. Unwin passed every other trial thrown at him during his candidacy, besting even our Lancelot in most. He is, along with Merlin and Lancelot, the reason that _all_ of us aren’t dead. He put Kingsman first by going to Merlin, unsure of his reception, when he found out Valentine’s plan rather than running to his family. He went into Valentine’s bunker facing danger that is far above what a new agent would ever face and triumphed, stopping not only the signal but also making the hard decision to kill. In one minute he amassed a body count higher than any agent at the table. He lives with the burden of those lives on his shoulders daily.

“After V-Day he continued to work as an agent, not knowing if he had a place when the new Arthur came. When he was not working as an agent, he worked to rebuild the support staff, helping Merlin find and hire new handlers, mechanics, and various other needed positions. He worked as a handler. He mopped the floors. He showed a greater loyalty to this agency than any of us ever have, and he did this not knowing if someone would show him the door.

“His mission performance is exemplary. His loyalty to this organization is beyond reproach, and he has the support of agents whose opinions I respect, but none more so that his predecessor, Harry Hart, who was the candidate of my nephew and who I watched become one of the best agents in this organization.

“The time of snobbery and elitist bullshit ended the minute that traitor King choked on his own poison sitting in this very chair. Mr. Unwin will be Galahad, and we all will welcome him to this Table. If you take issue with that, please see me at anytime. Now, I would like to propose a toast in the new Galahad’s honor if Merlin would be so kind as to fetch the whiskey.”

—————

Harry sits at his desk drawing diagrams of a butterfly that is in the book before him. He would like to pin some actual butterflies - _he could hang them in the bathroom so they could keep Mr._ \- Harry shakes his head. The thought leaves his head as quickly as it had come. These flashes, for want of a better term, come less than they did a month ago, and they no longer leave him angry and violent as Ginger said they used to, but they still make him feel off. Like his skin is on inside out or he is just a half step out of pace with who he is.

He hears the door whoosh open behind him.

“Hey there, Harry,” Tequila says, “I brought you something.” He takes off his hat as he enters, laying it on Harry’s bed. Not ones for furniture, these people. In his hand is a jar with a butterfly inside of it.

Harry rather likes Tequila. He’s a true southern gentleman, always unfailing polite to him, even on his bad days, and is always stopping by to say hello when he has a chance between business trips.It also doesn’t hurt that the boy is easy on the eyes, all rough cowboy in soft worn denim. He makes Harry wish he was as young as he forgets he’s not.

“Let’s see,” Harry says, holding out his hand.

“I found him outside, a bird was pecking at him and it tore his wing. I shooed the little bastard off, but I don’t think he has long for this world. Thought maybe you would like to look at him though before he goes.”

The butterfly has a torn wing, but other than that he seems in good health. He moves well and when Harry sticks his finger inside the jar, it crawls onto his finger, trying to flap its wings to fly.

“I wouldn’t write him off just yet. Do you think you could do me a favor?”

“Depends on what it is, I guess.”

“Could you see if there is another one of these, dead of course, and bring me… actually let me write it down for you.” Harry deposits the butterfly back into the jar and writes down what he needs.

“Ah, a scalpel, Harry? I don’t know if Ginger will let you have one of these,” Tequila says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking at his boots.

“Certainly if you were in here with me, she would. I don’t think I would be a danger to you,” Harry answers, blinking up at Tequila with doe eyes.

“I’ll ask, but I can’t promise anything, okay?”

“I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

“I’ll go see what I can scrounge up.”

An hour later Tequila returns with everything, including a scalpel and Ginger.

“Come to make sure I don’t hurt myself, Ginger?” Harry asks with only a touch of bitterness.

“No, I have come to see what you plan to do with it.”

“Well, gather round and let’s see if we can save this little thing.”

Harry works quickly, cutting away the wings of the dead butterfly Tequila found and the damaged wings of the living butterfly. In just a few minutes he has attached the new wing on to the butterfly and put it back in the jar. He hands the scalpel to Ginger.

“Thank you.”

“Happy to help,” she says with a smile. “That was impressive. Where on earth did you learn that?”

“Books, Ginger, they are wonderful things. Perhaps, maybe, I could get some new ones? And some new markers. These are getting a touch old.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you for allowing me to observe. I forget about small things like that, working here. It was a nice reminder.”

Tequila stays for a few moments more, talking with Harry, asking him how long it will be before they see if the little guy will be able to fly.

“Tomorrow, I should say. Take him with you and let him out the morning. I would very much appreciate it if you come and tell me how it goes.”

“You should be the one to do it, Harry.”

“We both know that won’t happen, but it’s nice of you to say.”

“Yeah, I guess. I will still speak to Champ about it. Listen, I got to get going. Another trip tomorrow, but I’ll come by before I leave, okay?”

“I look forward to it. Have a good evening, Tequila.”

“Jason, you can call me Jason.”

“Excellent, Jason then.”

“Yeah, good night, Harry.”

Harry sighs as he watches Jason leave the room. Yes, he definitely wishes he was thirty years younger. He’s always wanted to ride a cowboy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months Four through Six after V-Day.

**Four months after V-Day**

It’s Eggsy’s first official mission as Galahad and it's fucking _swank_. His tux makes him look like sex and money had an orgy and nine months later old Eggsy Unwin popped the fuck out. It’s black as night and the matching silk pants he has underneath his trousers make him feel like he is getting a fucking petal soft handie with each step he takes. He is buying an entire case of these pants when he gets home, swear the fuck down. And some for Brandon and Jamal too. His mates deserve nothing but the best cradling their bollocks.

He never thought he would be much of anything. At best he figured he would fall into some job that paid a living wage if he was lucky, maybe end up with a wife and kid because they forgot the condom or a boyfriend because neither of them had anything better to do. At worst, he’d take over for Dean. Fucking hate aside, Dean knew Eggsy was smarter than his whole pack combined and when he was drinking he’d talk about how Eggsy better get with the fucking program because he and Michelle would need taking care of. Like Eggsy wouldn’t have killed that fucker the first chance he got.

Instead he’s walking around some party where the goddamn flatware could buy him, his mates, his mum, and his flower nice flats in the parts of London they had no business being in and half the posh fucks in here are eyeing him up like he’s the main dish.

He wouldn’t mind being the main dish for a few of the toffs walking around here, but he and Tilde are making a decent go of it so far, so he contents himself with looking for his mark instead.

He is making a slow circuit of the room letting everyone look their fill while he gives Merlin a constant sweep of the room. He takes a sip of his drink, his eyes typing out _Where the fuck is this guy?_ in his glasses.

“I don’t know, Galahad,” Merlin answers. “He should have been at the gala by the time you arrived, ready for you to fall straight into his lap.”

 _So much 4 that_.

“Indeed. Keep walking around and looking pretty…”

_U think I’m pretty? U never said._

“Christ, just like fucking Harry. Yes, you’re the prettiest, now shut the fuck up so I can try to figure out what the hell has happened to the mark.”

“Eggsy!”

Eggsy turns so fast that he is sure he just gave Merlin motion sickness.

“Til… I mean, Your Highness, what a pleasure it is to see you,” Eggsy says as he bows over Tilde’s hand. “Would you do me the honor of allowing me to fetch you a drink?”

Tilde rolls her eyes. “I should say no since you’re being smart. I should use you for a foot rest instead.”

“Kinky, I…”

“Galahad. You're supposed to be blending in, being forgettable, being a fucking spy, not fawning all over your royal girlfriend’s breasts.”

“Jesus,” he says out loud since he is in front of Tilde, “you know about us?”

“I’m insulted you think I didn’t.”

“Am I in trouble? Does anyone else know?”

“No and yes, but we could table this discussion until after you complete the mission? Your mark has just entered the room. Stop drooling over the Princess and _go do your fucking job._ ”

“Sorry, love,” Eggsy stage whispers to Tilde, “got to go save the world.”

“Is that so?” she asks, allowing him to kiss her hand, wink, bow, and disappear into the crowd.

Eggsy weaves his way through the people mingling and admiring each other’s wallets, headed straight for the man he was there to see.

“God,” Eggsy says, sliding next to an older man at the bar, “this party couldn’t get any duller if they put valium in the drinks.”

The man, tall, silver hair at the temples, and a body that is going paunchy with age, looks him up and down. Eggsy gives him a coy smile.

“I daresay that might liven things up,” he says, his eyes roaming over Eggsy.

“It can’t make it any worse.” Eggsy extends his hand. “Liam Braidsforth, a pleasure.”

“Timothy Upton, and it most certainly is. I have a table,” he says cocking his head to the right and behind him, “right over there with some friends if you would like to join us. I am sure we can keep you amused.”

Eggsy peers over Upton’s shoulder and sees a table that has three men and two women sitting at it.

“No one at the table is any use to us. Get him alone,” Merlin orders.

“Hmm,” Eggsy hums, “seems a bit crowded over there for me. I’ll have to take a raincheck.” Eggsy pushes off from the bar. “Thanks for the offer. It was lovely to meet you,” he says as he turns to leave.

Upton’s hand shoots out and grabs his arm.

“Wait.”

Eggsy looks down at the hand on his arm and then up to Upton’s face.

“I just mean,” Upton says, removing his hand, “that we could go somewhere else. I have private rooms upstairs.”

Eggsy beams at him. “Now that sounds lovely.”

Up in Upton’s rooms, Eggsy unbuttons his jacket and sits down on one of the sofas in the room.

“I thought we would have some privacy, Timothy,” he says, giving a pointed look to the two guards flanking the front door.

“Pay no attention to them, darling, I certainly never do. They’re just the help.”

Timothy laughs and Eggsy joins in, picturing ten ways he could hurt Upton before his guards even realized something was going on.

“We could retire to the bedroom if you would like. They won’t join us there.”

Eggsy shudders at the thought of Upton touching him, but he needs to get out from under the eyes of the guards. He forces himself to stand and take Upton’s hand.

“Why not?”

Once they are seated, too close for Eggsy’s comfort, on the bed, Eggsy does a very complicated juggling act of avoiding Upton’s hands without seeming like he means to, getting confirmation that Upton is the slime ball they think he is, and then still avoiding the creep’s hands because _is this guy a fucking octopus or what?_ Every time he gets one hand off of him, three more appear somewhere in the general area of his arsehole. Fucking hell.

“If you don’t like your guards that much, why have them?” Eggsy asks, sipping his drink and allowing one of Upton’s hands to trace his inseam while he grits his teeth.

“The poor are a necessary evil.”

“We need someone to clean the loos right?”

Upton squeezes Eggsy’s thigh. “Exactly, darling. We, as their betters, give them work and they find their purpose through serving us. However, that doesn’t mean we have to like being around them. I find they are much more tolerable when they are even less than my children, never seen and never heard. The guards are the few of my personal employees that I actually allow within my space and that is only because I have to.”

“Makes you almost wish that Valentine guy succeeded, got rid of the worthless, kept the ones who survived as workers for the new age.”

“That’s not a sentiment I hear voiced every day,” Upton replies, his hand stilling and his eyes shrewd.

Eggsy scoffs and rolls his eyes. “My father, who was killed by our gardener on V-Day, had a soft spot for the working class. I saw where it got him. Best feeling I have ever had was burying the spade in that bastard’s chest after he used it to kill Father.” Eggsy slips his hand over Upton’s and winks. The man’s hard prick ends up winning against his better judgement.

“There are some of us that want to see Valentine’s work continued. We just need the finances.”

“Really? I wouldn’t mind helping out with that. Who else is in on it, anyone I would know?” His fingers trace over Upton’s and Eggsy licks his lips, watching as Upton does the same without thinking.

“I’m sure you would, and yes, some of our benefactors are very well known. But enough about business, why don’t we concern ourselves with pleasure, specifically the pleasure you are about to bring me.”

Upton leans forward to kiss Eggsy, his eyes closing and his mouth opening, his tongue wiggling about within. Eggsy slips the hypodermic needle out of his jacket and rams it in Upton’s neck a little harder than necessary.

“He’s fucking rank.”

“And here I thought you’d let him kiss you. Should we call you when we finish interrogating him? You two can pick up where you left off.”

“No one likes a smartarse, Merlin.”

“On the contrary, people love me.”

Eggsy pushes Upton off of him until the man falls to the floor in a heap. Eggsy accidentally steps on his hand, a couple times, until he hears something break. _Whoops._

“I keep hearing _you_ say that, yet I never hear anyone _else_ saying it.”

Merlin laughs. “Kay is heading up from downstairs to help you get him out of there. Can you take care of the guards?”

“I ain’t killing them, Merlin, they don’t deserve it after dealing with this fuck for however long. I’ll knock them out.”

“Galahad, they’ve seen you.”

“I have amnesia and knock out darts, Merlin. I know what it’s like to work someone that you hate, that makes you do things you hate, yeah? Let me handle this. Trust me.”

He can almost hear Merlin throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Fine, Jesus. But put trackers on them and I’ll set some junior handlers on them. If they become liabilities we will eliminate them, understood?”

“Understood, Merlin.”

Eggsy slips out into the other room, a gun in each hand, both trained on the guards. They both startle when they see him, obviously expecting Eggsy to be in the other room with his ankles tucked round his ears for the rest of the night. They each go for their guns.

“Come on now, we all know I can have a bullet in each of your skulls before either of you even get the safety off. Let’s be reasonable. Slide your guns over to me.”

The men look at Eggsy, look at each other, shrug, do just that, and then raise their hands. The guns slide right to Eggsy’s feet and he kicks them both further behind him.

“I have a proposition for you.”

“We ain’t fucking you, mate,” the one on the right says.

“No offense, _mate_ , but neither of you are my type.” Which they weren’t, at all. Eggsy likes his men fit, but the men in front of him looked like they pro-wrestled in their free time. All right for some, Eggsy supposes, but Eggsy doesn’t fancy getting his spine cracked in half during a good shag. “I need to know who your loyalty belongs to. Mr. Upton, his employers, or someone else.”

Eggsy can see the gears working with the men’s heads, trying to puzzle out what answer won’t get them killed.

“Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear because I can guarantee you it will be the wrong answer.”

“Mr. Upton may be a poof, and a fucking bastard at that, but he pays well. Unless you got something better on offer, I am sticking where I am,” the man on the right, the one who was adamant he was not fucking Eggsy, says, his chin lifting.

Eggsy nods and looks to his left. “And you?”

“Old fuck can choke on it for all I care.”

“Right,” Eggsy says and shoots the man on the left. The one on the right pisses himself when the other’s blood, and brains, hit the side of his face.

“You didn’t have to piss yourself, bruv. I ain’t shooting you. What I am going to do is wipe your memory and knock you the fuck out, and I am going to have to make a good show of it so it looks like you didn’t just let me walk out of here. Go find yourself another job, yeah?”

The man nods, his eyes wide. “Sure thing, mate. Thinking about going up to see some family in the north for a while now. Reckon this is as good a time as any.”

“Good idea. I am going to smack you around now, so be a good lad and stay still for me.”

Eggsy gives him a few fists to the face and stomach. As promised, the man just stands there and bleeds until Eggsy stands back to ready an amnesia dart. Right before Eggsy shoots him with the dart, the man mutters a wet sounding “Thanks,” and then slumps to the floor. The dart buries itself in the man’s neck just as there is a knock on the door.

“Who is it,” Eggsy calls.

“Candygram, sir,” comes Kay’s dry voice. The man may have backed Accolon a few weeks ago when he was trying to keep Eggsy from the table, but since they have developed a civil, heading towards friendly, relationship. Especially since Kay realized Eggsy was well-liked by Arthur. Kay is no fool when it comes to figuring out what alliances will serve him the best.

“Come in.”

Kay pushes the door open, struggling a bit when it hits the unconscious man in front of it.

“You only killed one?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Does Merlin know…”

“I do,” Merlin answers over both their glasses. “Don’t worry about things that don’t concern you, Kay.”

Eggsy might be able to overlook Kay’s behavior the month previous but it looks as if Merlin hasn’t even considered it.

“Kay, take Upton out the back of the ground floor. Bors is waiting on you. Galahad, the clean-up crew is coming up now. Assist them and then leave the party. Make sure you look the part when you leave.”

“Well fucked, you mean.”

“Quite. Your flight leaves late tomorrow afternoon. Good work.”

Later he lets himself into his hotel room to find Tilde waiting inside.

“Did you save the world, Mr. Unwin?”

He takes off his suit jacket and lays it across the chair to his left. He loosens his tie.

“I did, Your Highness. I most definitely did.”

“Well you know what you get now, don’t you?”

“I have an idea.”

—————

Harry is just slipping back into his clothes from his shower when he hears the soft _thud thud_ of someone knocking at the door. It must be Jason since he is the only person in, well wherever, Harry still is, that shows him the common decency of knocking.

“Come in,” he calls as he replaces his eye patch and starts towel drying his hair.

“Hey, Harry,” Jason says, his gait loose and his words soft. His jeans are painted on and the button-up shirt he is wearing is open at the collar. He is carrying a bottle and two glasses. “Care to keep me company and have a drink with me?”

“I don’t think I am set up for visitors as much as I would enjoy the company.”

“Fuck, Harry, I used to be a goddamn rodeo clown. You don’t think I have sat on worse floors than this to have a fucking drink?”

“Far be it from me to deny you then.” He sweeps a hand in front of him. “Be my guest.”

Jason chuckles to himself and sits on the floor facing the bed, his back to the wall. Harry joins him and takes the offered glass.

“I do hope you cleared this with Ginger. I am still on quite a bit of medication although what for I could not tell you.”

“We don’t need permission to have a drink, right? Don’t need permission to do nothing. We’ll fucking drink and smoke a damn joint if we want right? Because we’re grown ass men.”

Harry takes a drink and chokes a little. He never has a developed a taste for alcohol. Well, he supposes he doesn’t remember developing a taste for it. He looks down at the liquid in his glass, swirling it and _he sees his hand gripping an expensive crystal glass filled with whiskey. A gold signet ring flashes in the low light. He is looking up at a young man named…_

“… He is being such an asshole about all this, you know?”

Harry startles and realizes that Jason has been speaking to him while he remembered… what was it again?

“I do apologize, Jason. I lost myself there for a moment. What were you saying?”

“Jack, he’s being an asshole. Thinks it’s the worst thing in the world that I like to get a little loose on my down time. I work hard so I figure I earned it.”

“He doesn’t begrudge you a drink now and then.”

Jason rubs a hand over his face. “Harry, he doesn’t mind the drinking, he can’t since he drinks like a fucking fish himself. He minds the joints I smoke.”

“Oh, I see. I am sure he is just being a good friend to you, Jason.” Harry takes a bigger sip of his drink. It burns less. The third one even less so.

“Jack and I ain’t friends. I don’t know what we are. Fuck buddies maybe? I want us to be more but he says he won’t date a junkie.” Jason sighs and knocks his head back against the padded wall. “I won’t quit the smoke and he won’t quit seeing other people, but I also won’t quit turning my ass up into the air for him whenever he gives me that fucking look he gives me.”

Harry blinks at Jason. He knows that times must have changed since he was actually eighteen, and while he has never been ashamed of the fact that he likes men and women, he can’t help but feel shocked to hear it spoken of so openly.

Jason misunderstands his expression.

“You got a problem with me and Jack?”

“No, no, not at all. I am not up to date on the current expressions, but, I am, I suppose bisexual is still a proper term to use? I am just unaccustomed to hearing it talked about. For me it is still the 80’s.”

Jason laughs. “We have got to talk to Ginger about getting you some current reading material.”

“That would be nice, yes.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Drink up, Harry, we got a full bottle to kill.”

Harry tips the alcohol down his throat, ignoring the burn. “I asked but Ginger said that they don’t want to ‘trigger’ me.”

Jason refills his glass and his own.

“You ever smoke, Harry?”

“Not that I can recall, but that isn’t saying much as there is much I do not recall.”

“You want to?” Jason asks as he pulls a joint out of his pocket. “This is good stuff, nice and mellow.”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“You don’t have to, but I thought it might be nice for you to get a little fucked up. Fuck knows there ain’t too much around here that can make you smile,” Jason says as he looks around the room. “I see you’ve decorated the place. Looks good.”

Harry laughs to himself as he looks at the butterflies he has drawn on the walls. “I thought a little color might liven things up.” He ponders the joint Jason runs against his lips and then ponders the lips that are running over the joint. “Why not,” he says as Jason smiles, it brightening the man’s face, like… _someone’s_ used to do, “what more can you people do to me? I’m already locked up.” _Lock and Co._ Harry shakes his head and takes a drink. If nothing else, the drug will dull the bloody annoying flashes he keeps getting.

Later, moments or hours, Harry can’t tell with the whiskey and the pot and the dizzying scent of Jason’s cologne in his nose. Everything is funny and nothing matters, and Harry wishes he could hold on to this feeling of not worrying about who he is, what he was, who he was, and who he will be now forever. He leans his shoulder into Jason’s enjoying the contact of someone who isn’t running a million tests on him, or taking blood, or maneuvering him into an MRI machine. Jason is warm and solid and good.

“That’s some good shit, huh, Harry? Some good fucking shit right there. I don’t see why fucking Jack has to be such a son of a bitch about it. If he would just try it, you know?”

Harry nods like he knows. He doesn’t. In fact he can’t think of one thing he knows right now other than the fact that his glass is empty. He holds it up to Jason who laughs and refills it.

“I feel like I am corrupting you. Nice guy like you sitting on the floor with some fucker like me. Bet you’re like royalty or something with your fancy fucking accent and manners. Makes a guy want to see what makes you blush.” Jason meets his eyes and he takes a drink. Harry licks his lips and takes a drink of his own.

His feet are on the edge of a cliff and he knows that he is thinking about doing something some part of him will regret for a reason he cannot remember and does not care about. The other him, the one that tries to push forth and be heard can sit on it and spin, or politely bugger off while _he_ sits on something and spins. Either way.

“I don’t think I am the type of man who blushes easily,” Harry teases.

“Hmm,” Jason hums, a blunt fingertip reaching out and grazing Harry’s neck. “Looks like you’re blushing right now.”

Whether or not he was doesn’t matter because the heat in his face lets him know he is now.

“Jason,” he says, “a chemical induced fumble with a man who is almost twice your age would be inadvisable, especially just to take your mind off your current troubles as they are.”

“See, Harry, that’s what I am saying. Who says ‘chemical induced fumble?’ Why not just say a fantastic fuck?”

Jason takes Harry glass out of his hand and Harry lets him. He lets Jason pull him forward by the nape of his neck. He lets Jason kiss him until he is breathless. Jason pushes him to the floor and pulls at the elastic waistband of his trousers, and God help Harry who, for months has barely known the touch of his own hand with that fucking two-way mirror in the wall, lets him. His legs tremble, his heart races, and he wonders if the old body he now inhabits will embarrass him by giving him a heart attack before Jason even touches his cock. The very same cock that is so hard it doesn’t even feel good, it just aches.

Het lets Jason pull his trousers and pants down to mid-thigh and wrap his lips around that aching cock, sucking and licking until Harry’s hands slip over his head, holding him still as Harry fucks up up up into his mouth. He has to give it to the boy, he thinks, he doesn’t seem to have a gag reflex. It seems like only moments until Harry tries to pull him off before he comes. In two quick movements Jason has Harry’s hands off of his head and held to the floor next to his hips. Harry comes down Jason throat so hard it feels like he has been shot in the head all over again.

This one blow job put all the school boy touches in the stables with Phillip to shame. Bloody hell.

Jason crawls up his body and kisses him, pushing his own come into his mouth. Harry curses the old body he is stuck in because he feels like he could go again. He _knows_ he could go again.

Jason kisses him for a few more minutes, running his hands up and down Harry’s bare sides, fingers nails scratching and digging in, his hips rolling against Harry’s spent cock. It’s overwhelming after months of little to no contact but Harry loves it.

“Turn over for me, Harry. I don’t got any lube, but we’ll make due.”

Harry does and he hears Jason spitting into his hand before his cock slides between Harry’s thighs, tugged up close and tight to his bollocks. Jason’s hands bracket his head, the zip from his jeans cuts into the flesh of Harry’s arse, and the wet heat of his cock is driving Harry right round the fucking twist.

“Fucking knew you’d be one of hell of a lay. Almost came in my pants like a teenager when you fucked my face like that. Jesus,” he moans into Harry’s ear, “next time I come see you I’m going to bring some lube to I can slide into this beautiful fucking ass of yours. Make you scream some fucking more. Make you take it, take me.” Jason’s hips speed up and Harry rocks back to meet him moaning at the thought.

“Yes,” Harry breathes, “please.”

“Fuck yeah, you’d take it so well, fucking scream my name, fuck. I’m going to come all over you, gonna fucking come all fucking over you,” Jason pulls out from his thighs, pulling himself off all over Harry’s arse before putting his hand in it and rubbing it into Harry’s skin.

—————

Merlin, having left his desk the minute he recognized Tilde’s guards milling about the lobby of Eggsy’s hotel — which Eggsy did not notice and which Merlin plans on calling him out on the minute he sees him — leaves Avalon and waffles in the doorway of his rooms. His rooms that used to be Harry’s, then later theirs, and now only his.

Staying here is almost as painful as going home, almost. Here he can breathe without getting his oxygen from a bottle, but it hurts to, like he has just crawled on land and is still figuring out how his lungs work without gills. He sits on the bed and picks at the stitching on the duvet, casting his eyes around the room but seeing nothing.

He’s at loose ends. There is no justifiable reason for him to go back to his desk. He had been there for close to eighteen hours, six of those with Eggsy and his mission. Eggsy is giving Tilde a royal welcome, all the other agents are being handled by someone else, and Igraine might lock him out of his systems if he dares to log on from here. What do they say about the student surpassing the teacher? She did it ages ago. He is so proud of her but bitter at the same time. Did his Merlin feel like this when he looked at him? Merlin never thought about it, he was too busy being impressed by his own clear genius.

He’s still impressed by his own genius, though lately he feels his age creeping up. His mind, still whip quick and sharper than most people on their best days, now slows if he goes too long without sleep. His knees crack, along with his back, and on cold days spent to long at the keyboard his fingers hurt bad enough for him to contemplate a visit to medical, which for him, is one hell of a concession.

He’s not old yet, but he is getting there. Retirement is waiting for him, horrifying in its impending reality. Three years ago, two even, the prospect was not early as disheartening. Harry, it seemed, would defy the odds and make it to retirement. Sure, he had joked about him dying on his feet in the middle of Avalon but he had already made small plans for their lives together after Kingsman. They had Harry’s cottager, and he had been looking at properties in Scotland, Italy, and France because Kingsman paid fucking well, and neither of them would be content to sit at home for too terribly long. They could keep a hand in at Kingsman as trainers, consultants, something that was always open to the few that walked out of the manor on their own two feet rather than dying in some far away place, unclaimed.

Until Harry had died in some far away place, unclaimed.

Now what the fuck did retirement look like for him? Alone in Harry’s little house in the country, going out of his mind, talking to a dead man until he forgets he's dead? If he is passively suicidal now, how many days of retirement would it take for him to become actively suicidal?

Not many.

Anger surges through him as he stands and storms about the room. Fucking Harry should be here with him. He should to be here so Merlin and he could fucking enjoy their lives together. Two years, a little over two years is all they had together because Harry wouldn’t listen to him and had to walk out of the goddamned church and straight into the bullet that took him away from Merlin. Merlin hates him for that. He hates him as much as he loves him, and he hates him as much as he hates himself for being the reason they only had that handful of months together because Merlin was such a worthless piece of shit that he couldn’t love Harry the way the man deserved until it was too late.

A picture frame flies into the wall, followed by a glass whose only crime was sitting next to the picture frame, followed by his fist because there isn’t anything else close enough to throw. He is shaking, his whole body trembling in the most violent of ways. A scream is trying to crawl it’s way out of his throat. A dark, lumbering, horror of a cry that he silences by forcing his jaw shut, his teeth grinding together to keep it inside.

It wouldn’t do for the entire staff to know how close he is to losing his shit in a myriad of ways every moment of every single day.

Anger. Rage. Hate. It suffocates him.

It suffocates him until he is lying on the floor all but gasping for breath. It suffocates him until he _is_ gasping for breath because he has worked himself into a panic attack. It suffocates him until he blacks out.

He comes back sometime later. His old back and his ancient knees ache. His fingers, which have just healed from where he battered the floor of the house after he found Harry’s note with the engagement ring, might be broken again. He should go to medical to have them check.

Should.

Won’t.

Instead he cleans his mess up, one handed because the fingers on his right hand refuse to curl around the broom. He’s a genius though, he figures it out. After he puts things to rights he showers, a blistering hot one, and wraps himself in Harry’s red robe that he brought here because he couldn’t stand looking at it in the house. He can’t stand looking at it period, but tonight he is grateful for it, and grateful that he accidentally runs a fingertip’s worth of Harry’s cologne on it now and then.

Once he is wrapped in Harry’s scent, in Harry’s second skin because the daft twat never took this damn thing off at home unless Merlin was taking it off him, he grabs two bottles of whiskey, forgoing a glass because he’s broken them all and is too ashamed to smuggle in some more, and opens his computer.

He logs on to his private server, one so private that even he can forget it’s there, and brings up a video he watches now and again when he aches for Harry so much he thinks he might die from it.

He presses play.

 _Hello, Ian,_ Harry says, smiling into a mirror so his glasses reflect his image back to his feed.

“Hello, Harry,” Merlin answers, “I miss you.” Every time Merlin marvels at the fact that he forgets how beautiful Harry was, _is_ , to him. The smile, both sharp as a knife and the warmest Merlin has ever seen. His eyes, his jawline, his broad shoulders. Merlin would give his life, for what little it is worth any more, to bring Harry back, to bring him back and make him safe, because that was Merlin’s job. His fingertip traces down the screen.

_I miss you as well. I shouldn’t be gone long though. Simple in and out from what I can see._

“I hardly think taking down a crime syndicate from the inside can is a simple in and out.”

Harry laughs and Merlin takes a long draw from the bottle.

_Well, most agents aren’t me…_

“Thank god.”

Harry rolls his eyes as he keeps speaking _… Darling, and for me I can almost guarantee that it will be a simple in and out. In fact, I would bet on me being home in less than seventy-two hours._

“So sure of yourself?”

_Of course I am, I have the most amazing incentive to do so._

“And that is?”

 _You, Ian. It’s always you. You bring me home every time._ A longer pull and a muffled sob. _Through your extremely entertaining gadgets, your sheer stubbornness, and the thought of being able to step into your arms when I return, which, if I am being honest, is the biggest incentive of them all._

“You’re growing soft in your old age, Harry,” Merlin chokes out.

 _Only for you._ Harry smiles again and then tips his head back as someone says something to him. Merlin’s eyes roam over him, recommitting everything to memory because no matter how much he does he always forgets the reality of Harry.

_We are just about to begin our descent so I must dash, but I will be home soon. I’ll have you in my ear in a few moments._

“Yes, you will, but it will be strictly professional then. Well, as professional as I can count on you being.”

_Then I shall say it now. I love you, Ian._

“I love you, Harry. More than I can say.”

Harry smiles at that, all dimples, blows him a kiss, and disappears from the screen.

Empty bottle.

Play.

_Hello, Ian._

_—————_

**Five months after V-Day**

Eggsy is ninety percent sure he has this well in hand. Eighty. Sixty at least. So while he can hear Merlin’s voice getting increasingly clipped in his ear, he simply plows ahead. Only way out is through and all that.

“Galahad, we no longer have eyes in the building and Gwaine isn’t close enough to back you up yet. I order you to stand down.”

“Nah, bruv, I got this,” Eggsy says as he inches though the duct work. Old Leo is going to _skin_ him when he brings in his suit for cleaning. _Did you weave the dust into the fiber, sir?_

“There are at least fifteen men we know of in the building, there is one of you. Again, stand down.”

“Merlin, I ain’t standing down. We have waited months to get Coursa in London. _Months_. Now, not only is he in London, but he is in this fucking building with two of his generals and I am in the building with him. I have three guns, two lighters, my ring, and two blades. If Gwaine can’t get to me before I bring this place down around my ears then send him back to extraction training because I’ve already been here forty damn minutes inching through this dusty as fuck duct work. I say all of this with the utmost respect. If you are done wasting your breath on telling me to do something I ain’t, how about you tell me anything you can.”

Eggsy crawls while he waits for Merlin to give him anything, listening to him swear in Gaelic, which Eggsy finds soothing.

“I have nothing to give you, Galahad. Our satellites can’t see anything and the security system inside the building is locked down. I have nothing but the feed from your glasses. As your handler I am your superior officer. Stand down fucking now, Galahad, or you won’t being going on another mission for the next year.”

“You’ll only say that if I fail,” Eggsy whispers. “I am over the room where they are. Dropping in. _Now_.” Eggsy pushes through the vent he was over going headfirst into the room, dropping into a roll and rising to his feet, a gun in each hand. He is so fucking slick he makes himself hard sometimes.

“Gentlemen,” he greets, smiling. “Mr. Coursa, I have been trying to meet you for months. I’m over the moon at finally getting the chance.”

Coursa is sitting behind the desk with his two generals on either side. Two men flank the door just to Eggsy’s right. He steps back putting them in his sight and a corner at his back while two more men sat in chairs in front of the desk. A bag of coke and some papers sit on the desk. Every man in the room, except for Coursa, pull their guns and point them at Eggsy.

Right. Seven men. Easy as pie. Eggsy will be home in time to call Tilde.

“Am I everything you thought I would be, boy?” Coursa asks, grinning so wide his teeth glint in the light.

“Everything and more.” Eggsy is moving through different scenarios in his head, planning order of kills and escape routes.

“Where’s your parents? Little thing like you should be home in bed.”

“He wouldn’t fucking listen to him,” Merlin grumbles in his ear and Eggsy about chokes himself trying not to laugh.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to dismiss your men and come with me?”

“It would.”

“We should get this over with then,” Eggsy says and shoots the two generals on either side of Coursa, then drops to his knees, sliding across the floor, as shots fly over his head to embed themselves into the wall behind him. He hits the man who is in the righthand chair in front of the desk with his signet ring while shooting up into the chin of the one of the left. As the man he got with his ring falls, still twitching, he grabs him to use him as a body shield while he shoots the two men at the door. He stands, dropping the now dead man on the floor.

He hears gunfire outside in the hallway. Gwaine is here.

“Easy peasy, lemon fucking squeezey, mate,” Eggsy says to Merlin, who is silent. The man is proper pissed if he isn’t saying anything. Eggsy looks down while he brushes himself off.

“I do apologize for taking out your friends, Mr. Coursa. We could have avoided that if you had just come…” Eggsy raises his eyes just in time to see Coursa with a gun trained on him. He fires. The bullet hits Eggsy point blank in the face. His head whips back. As he falls, he can’t help but think two Galahads going out the same way is ironic and that he is sorry Merlin had to be the sad fuck to see it. A second bullet slams into his chest as he tips back, crushing the breath out of him and knocking him the final distance to the floor. His head slams into the hardwood flooring as his vision goes black.

—————

Merlin watches in horror as once more he is looking down the barrel of a gun through an agent’s feed. The shot flares out.

He jumps to his feet, a choked out cry of _Harry_ leaving his lips before he realizes it. Not Harry, but Eggsy, another Galahad that Merlin has failed in the worst way. Another broken promise.

One monitor shows the grainy sight of the ceiling as Eggsy’s head makes the same sicking trajectory as Harry’s did while the other shows Gwaine’s feed as he bursts through the door to see Eggsy falling back. Another shot and Eggsy grunts.

Gwaine shoots Coursa dead, walks over to him and kicks his body off the computer he had fallen on. Merlin hopes there isn’t too much blood in it but he’s worked with worse.

Coursa would have been better alive, but since he has killed Eggsy Merlin is a hundred percent on board with Gwaine’s decision.

Gwaine drops to the floor next to Eggsy, and as much as Merlin hates to admit it, he looks away from the monitor for a moment. He just needs a moment before he looks at Eggsy’s ruined face. “He’s got a pulse, Merlin. Jesus, the fucking lenses caught the bullet. You goddamn genius.”

Merlin’s breath leaves him in a gust as he sags against his chair.

A promise not so broken after all.

He excuses himself to his office where he spends the next hour crying. Igraine covers for him. She always does.

Merlin visits Eggsy in medical the next day. Eggsy is still asleep when he comes in, but as someone who has sat many a vigil next to a bed with a Galahad in it, Merlin has come prepared with tea, for himself, biscuits, Eggsy’s favorite, but still for himself, and right telling off that is all for Eggsy. He makes his tea and opens the biscuits as loud as he can.

He brings the thermos cup up to his nose, inhaling the steam, dunks his biscuit, and eats it in one bite, before he speaks.

“I’ve spent more time in these godforsaken rooms than I think I have spent in my own fucking office. Harry was practically paying a mortgage on a room himself, he was here so much. The fact that I’m always playing field wife to the Galahads makes me wonder just what the fuck I did in a former life to deserve it.”

“Way I see it, bruv, you just get to hang out with the prettiest agents, yeah?”

“You’re awake. Good. I can yell at you now. Buckle in. I don’t even know how mad I’ll get. I haven’t slept since the night before last.” Merlin leaves the chair and stands at the foot of Eggsy’s bed.

“Merlin, I know I fucked up. I should have listened to you. I should have waited for Gwaine. I should have shot that fucker too instead of being a cocky arsehole and getting myself shot.”

“You’re damn fucking right you should have listened to me. I have been doing this since before you were born, literally. I have been leading missions for agents before we had glasses and little toys to put in your pocket. I can do this is my fucking sleep, so when I give an order to stand down, you _stand the fuck down_.”

“What was I supposed to do? Just let the rat fuck get away? We had been chasing him for _months_ , Merlin, months.”

“I fucking know that, you idiot, I’m the one running most the ops right now.”

“Then you know this was the best chance we had to get him and information on his operations. It could’ve been another year before we had the chance again.” Eggsy is sitting up in bed and yelling back.

“It would have been worth another year if that meant you coming home alive.”

Eggsy slugs himself in the chest with his fist. “Right fucking here, Merlin, yeah? Came home alive.” Eggsy presses his hand into the gauze over his eye socket and Merlin heart stops when he realizes blood is seeping into the white.

“Fuck,” Eggsy says. “Fucking hell this hurts. The glass from the lens went all around my eye, cutting me to fuck, and scratched my damn eyeball. Feels like it’s on fire.”

Merlin can’t look away from where the blood appears. In his mind he is convinced that if he pulled the gauze away, there would be a hole going all the way through Eggsy’s skull.

He might need to get some sleep.

“You’re alive because Harry died.”

“What?” Eggsy asks all but grinding the heel of his palm into his eye now.

Merlin clears his throat but his voice still sounds like he is talking over gravel. “After Harry died, I spent all my off time working on the glasses. I made the lenses bulletproof without sacrificing the actual reason we use the glasses in the first place. I swore to myself that no one would be killed like Harry. I'd protect every single inch of my agents I could cover. I'd bring them home alive. I forgot I did it with all the running about leading up to Arthur coming. You were the first agent to take a bullet to the eye since Harry. Had he not died like he did, it would have never occurred to me to make those modifications. I hoped they would work, the tests were promising, but there were so many variables. I wish I never had to find out.”

“Merlin…”

Merlin straightens, spine straight, voice clear again. “When I give you an order, you follow it. Despite what you think you know, I know better. I am your superior for a reason and from now on you listen to me, understood.”

“Yes,” Eggsy mutters.

“What was that?”

Eggsy looks up and Merlin’s gorge rises — he knows he is hallucinating, he knows, but it’s not making it any _easier_ — at the blood he sees all over Eggsy’s face. “Yes, sir,” Eggsy replies, clear as a bell.

Merlin tosses the glasses into Eggsy’s lap. Gwaine was right when he said the bullet was embedded in the lenses. The glass stopped its movement by fusing itself around the metal tight enough that Merlin would have to break them to pull it out. He had sat in his office wondering at his own invention, then wondering what his life would be like right now had he just thought of this sooner. The glasses went from being a marvel to a metaphorical nail in his palm after that. Eggsy can keep them now. Perhaps they would help him think about his actions. If he is anything like his predecessor — which he is, god fucking help Merlin, but the lad _is_ — he won’t think about his near brush with death for a moment longer than it takes Merlin to get out the door.

Right now it’s _all_ Merlin is thinking about.

—————

Eggsy picks the lock and opens the door. He moves into the house quickly, his gun drawn and pointed at the floor with Percival right behind him doing the same. In the back of his head he hopes none of the neighbors saw him kick it in. Perce might not catch a second glance in his suit, but Eggsy looks like a proper thug in his snapback, jeans, hoodie, and some gauze covering his left temple and eye.

The last thing they need are cops coming in and fucking things up.

Eggsy points to himself and nods up the stairs, Percival nods back and heads into the other rooms. Eggsy climbs the stairs, his feet silent, listing for any sign of life within the house.

No one has heard from Merlin in almost twenty hours, which as far as Eggsy knew, was practically unheard of unless he had let someone know he was going dark. Eggsy is still fucking pissed no one had contacted him, or Perce, until after hour eighteen.Igraine said that they didn’t want to bother him, wanted to give him some breathing space after Eggsy’s injury and his reaction to it. The reaction that Eggsy feels should have ensured that someone contact him and Perce before it got this far. _Fucking hell._

Merlin has been on a downward spiral for months despite Eggsy doing everything he could to take care of him, and the clusterfuck of a mission was the perfect thing to tip the man right over the edge. If someone hadn’t snatched him for being Merlin, Eggsy tries not to think about what they are going to find.

Merlin isn’t on the second floor, the master and guest bedrooms are empty and undisturbed. Merlin had been in the office because a cup of tea was there, half drank and cold next to Harry’s laptop. At least Eggsy knows he had been home between leaving the manor and now.

He goes back downstairs. Perce is just coming out of the kitchen.

“He was here at some point,” Perce says, holstering his weapon, “some of the food you kept in the fridge is half eaten on the counter next to an empty bottle. Nothing up there?” He points with his chin.

“Just a half-drunk, cold cup of tea and an open laptop. I hope he didn’t get blind fucking drunk and wander off somewhere.”

“It would have been better if he had. At least then we could find him on some camera’s footage or triangulate his glasses. Speaking if which, Igraine said they showed that they are here in the house. Did you see them?”

“No, but I wasn’t looking either. I’ll check the…” Eggsy’s voice trails off when he hears a sound outside in the garden.

The sound of a gun clattering to paving stones.

Both re-draw their guns and go to the garden. Outside, in a chair with his upper body laid out on the garden table, is Merlin. His skin is cold and tinged with blue, his breathing is shallow, and on the ground next to him is a dried puddle of vomit. The gun lies on the stones at his feet, along with photo albums and pictures pulled out of the pages. Three empty whiskey bottles sit lined up like soldiers on the table. There is no glass.

Eggsy places his fingers against his neck. There is a pulse, but it’s thready.

“Help me with him,” Eggsy says, as he pulls Merlin up, getting his shoulder underneath Merlin’s arm. “We’re dumping him in the cab and taking him to medical.”

Perce gets Merlin’s other side and helps to hoist him up. “What about all of this,” he asks, indicating the gun and photos and fucking sick.

“Just leave it, yeah? We can worry about it when we know this stupid fuck hasn’t killed himself.” _Which he was apparently thinking about,_ Eggsy thinks.

Merlin rouses for a moment, gets his feet under him and sings, his voice slurring the words together, “ _It seems a shame to leave you now, you lay so soft and warm. I long to lay me down again and hold you in my arms._ ”

Perce gives the now passed out again Merlin a look of horror. “John fucking _Denver_? Is he kidding with this?” he asks as they drag Merlin, who weighs a fucking ton, through the house and out to the cab.

“Does it fucking matter, Perce? Jesus.” And no, that’s not on. It’s not Percival’s fault Merlin is a fucking wanker who will not get his shit together so Eggsy can stop worrying himself sick that he is going to lose someone he cares about from drink, or as it seems tonight, another fucking bullet in another fucking skull. “Sorry, that was rude as fuck. My head is killing me and I’m about to puke with worry over this one.

“Understandable, I’m just as worried, and just as angry, I’m just too repressed to show it. However, when he wakes up, he will receive a spectacular telling off. I’m already scripting it in my head. I haven’t gotten to scream at someone in medical since James died so this one should be, as you say, epic.”

“Get in line, bruv. He’s going to wish he just would have froze out here by the time we get done with him,” Eggsy says, his eyes narrowed as they dump Merlin into the back. “I’ll drive, yeah?”

“Of course, I’ll sit back here and make sure his head doesn’t hit the window too many times.”

Eggsy snorts as he gets in the front. In the rearview he sees Percival, for all his talk of heads and windows, pulling Merlin’s lax body into his own, one hand cradling Merlin’s head and the other wrapped around his wrist to check his pulse. His mouth is a grim line and his eyes are haunted. Eggsy realizes, because he knows there is history between Merlin and Perce, he just doesn’t know what it is, that he isn’t the only one fighting tooth and nail to keep Merlin with them.

He taps his glasses.

“Igraine here.”

“Igraine, this is Galahad, I need you to clear a way for my cab and put a DNS out for us so we don’t get stopped.”

“Why the rush? There are no missions at home.”

“I’d rather not say over open comms, but just trust me on this, yeah?”

Eggsy thinks it might dawn on her why he is flying to the manor like the devil himself is in pursuit. He hears a muffled click and the white noise in the background changes.

“We are on Merlin’s private comms. What’s going on?”

“Can’t be too private if you can get in them, doll.”

“He gave me the password.”

“We got Merlin, but he’s in a bad way. Anything more than that can be said in person.”

She sighs and clears her throat. “Fucking hell, that fucking man. I swear to god, I am going to kill him…”

“You’re going to have to take a number,” he says, weaving in and out of traffic, blowing his horn and gesturing at drivers and pedestrians alike, “Get the fuck out of the fucking way, mate, before I have you as a fucking hood ornament, yeah?”

“Oh, don’t you worry, I will get my say.”

“Not worried in the slightest.”

“You better… fuck, good news and bad news.”

“No, I don’t want any.” The sound of his horn obliterates Eggsy’s voice for a moment. “I will fucking mow you over, _fucking move!_ I don’t want any bad news. Got enough, ta very much.”

“Good news is I have the DNS on you but the bad is that traffic is backed up for miles because of some parade.”

Eggsy flicks his eyes up to the mirror again and sees Percival slapping Merlin’s face. “His pulse is weaker, Eggsy.”

“We are coming in at Rendezvous Swan then, under the lake, Igraine. Have a med team meet us in Bay 2 in fifteen. Galahad out.”

Once they get in, get Merlin out of the car and on to a stretcher, medical whisks him away, leaving Percival and Eggsy staring after him. Eggsy sways on his feet, the adrenaline that had been flooding his system since that gun clattered to the ground, leaving him in a rush. He sits down on the floor, his arse hitting it with a thud, because his legs ain’t holding him up any more. Perce crouches down next to him, using his hand to turn Eggsy’s face towards him as he peers in Eggsy’s eyes.

“Eggsy? Hey, you with me?”

Eggsy does a slow blink at Percival before shaking his head to clear it.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Just crashed there for a mo.’” He shakes his head again, which makes it swim, and pulls his snapback off to run his fingers through his hair. “I’m fucking worried about Merlin. I just lost Harry, I can’t lose that bald fuck, too.”

Percival sits on the floor next to him.

“Fucking hell, your suit, mate.”

“Eggsy, this suit is bullet proof, I doubt some damp floor is going to cause irreparable damage.”

“It’s you that has to take it to Dagonet, not me.”

“You’re not the only one who is worried. First James, then Harry, and now I have to wonder if Ian is going to jump off a fucking bridge. This has got to stop. I will _not_ let him go,” Percival says, his voice dark and vehement.

“What’s your story then? With you and Merlin, I mean.”

“Rather personal, wouldn’t you say?”

“Right, yeah, sorry, sometimes my mouth moves before my brain can stop it, yeah?”

Perce laughs and Eggsy feels his cheeks heating up. “I’ve noticed.”

“Piss off.”

“Ian and I, well, not to put a fine point on it, we were lovers for a time. It ended when after James became Lancelot and we got together.”

“No shit? You and Merlin?” Eggsy tries picturing it and he can, because they are two good looking blokes. But it’s Merlin. And Percival. “I don’t know whether to find that arousing or nauseating.”

“Oh, Eggsy, it was very arousing, but it was never serious. We were both single and when we wanted to, we fucked. Hell, when we started it we could barely stand each other. Now, I would say he is the closest friend I have and I love him dearly.”

“But I thought him and Harry had been in love since like forever with the way he talks about him, when he does talk about him.”

“Suffice to say they were in love with each other for as long as I had known them, but they didn’t get their shit together until about four years ago, mostly because they are arseholes.

“You have to understand, and you should before we both tear into the man, that Ian is not only dealing with the loss of the man he loves, but he is also dealing with guilt for a great many things. The foremost being that he blames himself for Harry’s death. To almost lose you too, in the same way, made him snap.

“However, this has gotten out of hand. I know a thing about grieving for the man you love, but this shall not continue even if that means I have to move into his home and watch him morning to night.” Percival stands and offers Eggsy a hand. “Come on, let’s go see what Gipson has to say and then we will go clean up the fucking mess at the house.”

“Right,” Eggsy says, standing on still shaky legs. “Yeah, we can see how much yelling we will need to do.”

Turns out they had a lot to be pissed about. According to Gipson, had they not found Merlin when they did, he would have been dead from a deadly mixture of exposure and alcohol poisoning by morning, both working to keep the man unconscious and outside. From the stony look on Percival’s face Merlin was going to be in for a fucking treat between the two of them.

—————

Merlin wakes two days later. As he cracks his eyes open, he hears a gun safety clicking off to the right of his head. He goes still.

“I was wondering where you’d like it,” Eggsy says as he pushes the muzzle into Merlin’s temple. “Right here? Was this where you was going to put it, or,” Eggsy drags it down underneath his chin and digs it in again, “was you going to put it here? Or you want to open your mouth so I can feed it to you? I’m just wondering so I can do it right, yeah? Since you’re so fucking ready to die and all.”

“Eggsy,” he says, lifting up his hands, his words stilted by the gun under his chin, “I have no clue what you are talking about, so why don’t you just put the gun down and we can talk about this.” On a good day he could have the gun from the lad’s hands, break it down, and Eggsy pinned to the floor with a knee at his back, but he is far from a good day.

“Been trying to talk to you for months now, Merlin, ain’t we? Trying to keep you from drinking yourself to death in that goddamn house, trying to be supportive and there for you, but it ain’t been enough, has it? You want to know how I know it ain’t been enough?”

“How?”

The gun digs into his chin now and Merlin wonders if he will have a bruise there.

“I know because three nights ago you went off the grid. You went home for the night and didn’t come to work the next day. Wouldn’t answer your phone or your glasses, couldn’t find you nowhere. And then when they finally get around to notifying me and Perce, you’d been missing for eighteen hours. We broke down the door to the house to find you in the fucking garden, in the cold, mind, with a gun that had just fallen out of your hand, photos of you and Harry all over the fucking place, _four_ empty bottles and a puddle of fucking sick. Any of this ring a bell? So I ask you a-fucking-gain, where were you going to put the fucking bullet, yeah?”

“Eggsy, I remember none of that, I swear.”

“See, bruv, that don’t make it any better. In fact, I think it makes it worse because you were going to commit fucking suicide in the middle of a black out drunk. Hell, you almost ended up not even having to do it yourself, because the alcohol and weather about did it for you. You were hours away from dying, fucking hours.” Eggsy stashes his gun in the holster underneath his jacket. “This stops now. One way or another.”

“Fuck. Listen, I am going to get a handle on things. I swear.”

“Oh, I know you are, bruv. I, Perce, Igraine, and fucking _Arthur_ , are going to personally see to it.”

“I don’t see how any of this your concern.”

“You fucking what? No, it is my goddamn concern. Harry was the closest thing to a father figure I ever had, yeah, and he fucking loved you. So, er-fucking-go, I love you, you absolute cunt. You are my mate, more than that, and I ain’t losing you. I need you around Merlin, and the rest of this fucking lot does too. You are the fucking backbone of all of us. We cannot stand without you holding us up.”

“And who the fuck is holding me up?” Merlin yells. “I am sick of being the strong one, always soldiering on, doing what needs to be done and damn my feelings. I lost the man I fucking love, my entire reason for being, and I still come to work every day. A job where I have to wonder if I am going to have someone else I care about get their brains blown out the back of their skull.”

“You’re a fucking idiot. Harry would not have wanted this.”

“How the fuck do you know what he would have wanted? You barely fucking knew him and you are going to pretend you even have a clue of what I am going through?”

Eggsy grabs him by the neck of the hospital gown he is wearing and once again it shocks him to the core of how much he looks like Harry when he was young. Harry had that same righteous anger flowing through him when he was about to hand Merlin’s arse to him.

“Listen to me you bald motherfucker. I didn’t have time with Harry like you or Perce did, but I knew the man and I know how much he loved you by the way your name sounded when he said it. You are going to honor his fucking memory by being the man that is fucking worth the love he gave you, get me? Or if you can’t, then finish the fucking job you started the other night because you aren’t the man he thought you was.” Eggsy pushes him back down into the bed. “And as for who is holding you up? We’re fucking holding you up, you damn idiot, or we would if you would let us.” Eggsy goes to the door and then turns back.

“I’d rest up if I were you, bruv. I’m just the Ghost of Christmas past, yeah? Perce, Igraine, and Arthur all got some shit to say to you, so think about it and get back to us on if we are going to get to keep you around or if we should plan your fucking funeral. I, for one, ain’t begging you to stay any more. You stay because you want to.”

The silence is deafening when Eggsy leaves. He doesn’t remember, he doesn’t, getting the gun or the photos, or hell, even the second or third bottle. He blacked out somewhere before he finished the first bottle, most likely because he started at a pub, not that anyone else needs to know that, because he was thinking of trying to pull someone. He was so lonely, so lonely his fucking bones ached, and he needed something to blot out the superimposed vision of Harry and Eggsy’s heads snapping back when the bullet hit them.

He pulled, and when the man tried to kiss him in the loo, he almost vomited and ran out of there. Then he went home to, well, apparently to drink and find a gun.

Eggsy is right. This has to stop. Merlin has always been a pinnacle of control. Only Harry could make him lose it, sometimes for the good, and sometimes not so good. Right now though, this is definitely not so good.

When he wakes again, it’s not to the feel of a gun pressing into his head, it's to a soft hand wrapped around his.

“Ian,” Alistair says, frowning.

“Ali, come to yell at me as well?”

“No, not right now. I may later. I have, after all, had a blazing row with you in my head for the past few days, but I’m tired right now and I can’t seem to muster the energy for it. Also, Eggsy was a dear and left his glasses on while he yelled at you. Jesus, are you sure Michelle birthed him? I swear Harry just shit him out one day, so much like him he is, although with a much fouler mouth.”

That startles a laugh out of Merlin. “Glad I am not the only one who sees it.”

“Christ no, he’s as vicious as Harry was when he was mad.”

Alistair frowns again and looks at their hands. Merlin squeezes his. “Say what you need to, Ali. We have never minced words with each other.”

“That night on the roof you said that I could not die, that you needed me because you and I were the only ones who remembered James and Harry rather than Lancelot and Galahad.” Alistair’s eyes are wet and he clears his throat while squeezing Merlin’s hand so tight that it hurt. “The same goes for you. I need you here as much as you need me. I will not sit and watch you kill yourself.” He lets go of Merlin’s hand and stands, bending down to grasp his head with both hands, leaning his forehead into Merlin’s. Percival’s eyes are a deep brown and pained when they look into the green of Merlin’s. “We have been many things to each other and I cherish them all, Ian, but one thing we will always be are survivors. We owe it to each other, we owe it to Eggsy and Roxanne, and we owe it to Harry and James, to survive, to keep their memories alive together, to keep each other together.”

Merlin grasps Alistair’s wrists and holds on, his eyes meeting Alistair’s, understanding, apologetic, shamed.

Alistair presses a kiss to Ian’s forehead. “I love you, Ian. I love you so much that I will not hesitate to take you to a rehab clinic in the middle of the woods and leave you there until you get your head on straight. So get your shit together or I will get it together for you. Are we clear?”

“Crystal. I am sorry, Ali.”

“Don’t be sorry, be fucking better.”

A knock sounds at the door. Merlin sighs. “Two down, two to go it seems.”

“Could be worse.”

“That it could. Come in,” he calls when Alistair has sat back down, and then nearly snaps his back standing again when Arthur comes into the room.

“Arthur, I was just leaving.”

“Percival, good to see you. Thank you for your help in getting Merlin here.”

“Always glad to be of service, sir. I’ll go and let you two talk. Ian,” Alistair says with a squeeze of the hand and leaves.

“I would stand, sir,” Merlin says.

“Bah, I’m not Chester. I don’t expect people to stand every time I break wind.”

“He expected a marching band for that.”

“Ho ho, quite. So, shall we talk about what happened or should I just tell you what I am going to do about it?”

“Let’s just get to the part where you hand me my marching papers.”

“No, you aren’t getting off that easily. I need you here, but I also need you _here_ , and not where you are right now, at the bottom of a bottle. I understand it, I do. I mentioned that I lost my wife of fifty years…”

“Christ, I can’t even imagine.”

“Yes you can, and that’s why you’re in that bed. But you need to get to a place where you can live with the pain, Merlin, and I mean _live_ , not the bullshit excuse for a half life you have been living for the past few months. I am not going to say it stops hurting, because it doesn’t, but it becomes manageable, if that is the right word.”

“I understand.”

“Good, then you will understand that you are being placed on leave as of now for the rest of themonth. You may stay in your rooms at the manor, but you will not be working, or you may go to your house. You will continue to see Viviane, but now the requirement is at least twice a week. ”

“Arthur, surely…”

Arthur holds up a hand. “Igraine will run Avalon in your absence. She’s a fine second, Merlin. She’s not you, but she’s close. These are the terms of your continued employment with the agency. However, you can tell me to go fuck myself and tender your resignation. Then you are free to drink yourself to death. Your choice.”

Arthur sits back in the chair and looks at him.

“Of course, tendering my resignation also means being under Kingsman scrutiny for the rest of my life to ensure my silence.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that, your Merlin retired and we leave him alone.”

“Because we have him under surveillance. No, I’ll take the leave. Igraine may contact me if I am needed?”

“On the off chance something comes up that we cannot handle, yes, she will contact you. I doubt that will happen, however, since you are the one who trained her.”

“True. I’ve said it to everyone else, so I shall say it to you. I am sorry for this mess I have gotten myself into, Arthur. It is unbecoming as a senior member of Kingsman.”

“That’s bullshit. Do you think you are the first one to end up in the bottom of a bottle? Or worse? This puts all of us through the worst that humanity can throw at us at all times, whether we are the agents, the one assigning the agents, or the ones trying to bring them home. We all have a breaking point. You just found yours. Now it is time to pick up the pieces and move forward as best we can. You aren’t alone here, Merlin, not as long as I sit at the head of the table, and your friends sit with me. It would do you good to remember that. Dr. Gipson says he will release you tomorrow so before you leave I expect you to meet with Igraine and Viviane to make sure everything is in order. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Thank Eggsy. I had no plans on being rid of you but the boy made such an impassioned plea for you that it would be cruel not to let him think it worked,” Arthur says with a wink.

After Arthur leaves he takes a deep breath and taps his glasses.

“Igraine here.”

“Igraine, I was wondering if you had time to meet with me to discuss handing over the reins as it were.”

“Hmph. I should tell you no but I do need to talk to you so I don’t fuck this up any more than it already is.” He can hear her crossing her arms and scowling. _Hear_ it.

“Is there a time that is good for you?”

“Let’s get it over with, shall we? I’ll be there in ten.”

“Merlin out.”

Igraine’s anger stings worse than the others put together, well maybe not Arthur’s, but definitely worse than Eggsy’s and Percival’s. Before this Igraine looked up to him. He was her mentor, he was Merlin, the wizard, who could do things from his perch that mere mortals could not. Now she sees behind the curtain and realizing that the Great and Terrible Oz is nothing but a mere man flying by the seat of his pants. It stings a little. A lot.

She blows in, tea in hand, and all but throws it at him while he mumbles a surprised, “thank you.” He rather thinks the red and orange threaded through her dark dreads is suitable for the fire she is breathing. Merlin’s own Valkyrie. He _adores_ this woman.

“I almost didn’t bring it, thought I would just let you rot in here with shit tea and terrible food, but in the end I am too fucking nice for my own good.”

“You’re to good to me, Igraine.”

“I fucking know that. But what I am not is you, you absolutely stupid fucker. I have been covering for you for months, and how do you repay me? By almost killing yourself by getting drunk in your fucking garden and playing chicken with your gun. I thought you're a genius, right?”

“Well, I’ve never been tested.”

“For fucks sake,” she says, throwing up her hands, “it was rhetorical.”

“Right,” he says as he sips his tea in what he hopes is a submissive way.

“From what I understand, and got to see over Galahad’s glasses, Eggsy got to play the bad cop. Percival was the good one, and Arthur was Arthur. So me, I’m going to be me too.”

“I’m listening.”

“Oh, I hope you are, I really do. Know this Merlin, I was there for you for years while you and Harry danced around each other. I was there when you pulled your _stupid fucking head out of your stupid arse_. I know what you and Harry were to each other more than anyone besides Percival does, so I know that you are going through some fucking shit, alright? But I also know this. I am not you, and I am not ready to be you. Fuck, I don’t want to. I still have so much to learn from you, so much. So you get your shit together over the next month while I age myself by a decade running this shit show of mostly overgrown man-babies in bespoke and you come back and take it the fuck back over. Because if you don’t? I will fucking _erase_ you. Ian McClaggen will cease to exist. Everything you have that you think you have hidden away? I will find and I will make it disappear. You won’t be able to buy a fucking bottle of water on credit by the time I am done. I can do this, you know I can because I learned from you. Savvy?”

“Yes,” Merlin says all but beaming with pride.

“Good, now tell me all your secrets before my world ends tomorrow.”

—————

**Six months after V-Day**

“Merlin,” Eggsy says from the doorway, “need a favor, bruv.” Eggsy saunters in wearing his street clothes. Merlin again bemoans the fact that they look fire retardant because burning them all would be a right laugh in Merlin’s opinion.

“Eggsy, today is a day off for you. A day _off_ , as in not at the manor, as in not in my office, as in not in my hair.”

Eggsy glances at his head. “Why do you say things like that? Do you do it just to trip me up, make me say smart arse things that are guaranteed to end with me running laps around the fucking obstacle course until three in the morning?”

“Think of it as an exercise in self-control. A constant lesson in manners. Make Harry proud.”

“If you are going to tell me that he didn’t make a bald joke at your expense every single chance he got I am calling bullshit. I may not have known him for long, but even I could tell he was as cheeky as me.”

“He was cheekier and a menace for it. I have never known anyone in my entire life that made me want to kiss him and pummel him into the floor at the same time. Until you, but without the kissing.”

“Thank fucking god for that. You’re a bit old for me, Merlin. I mean you’re fit if you’re into granddads and all, and I am sure you’re a nice kisser, but I… ”

“Eggsy?”

“Yeah?”

“Please shut the fuck up.”

“Jesus, gladly.” Eggsy rubs at his face. “Anyway, I need to find a place to live.”

“Michelle finally came to her senses and kicked you out? Twenty-six is far too old to be living at home.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “No, mum didn’t kick me out. But Tilde wants to come stay with me for a little while. Something like a gap year before she starts being more royal or some such shit. Or not like a gap year. I don’t know. She just wants to come live with me for a while, see how the other ninety-nine percent live, I guess. I ain’t moving her in with mum and Dais for fuck's sake, so I need a place of my own.”

“What about my place?”

“I ain’t fucking moving in with you either. You’re a terrible house keeper.”

“Excuse me?”

“What, you think it’s just the cleaning crew that cleans up that place? Christ, I have scrubbed more vomit off the floor after your all-nighters than I ever did living with Dean. Plus there is always hair in your sink. You ain’t got any on your head so I try not to think about where it comes from.”

“When you’re old enough to grow pubic hair, Eggsy, you’ll understand a man’s grooming rituals.”

“Oi, fuck you, mate. I’m a proper man. Got hair on bollocks and everything. Want to see?”

“I’d rather drink bleach.”

Eggsy throws back his head and laughs. Merlin’s mouth may twitch a little. May.

“I was serious though, Eggsy. I have been thinking about getting a place of my own. Living there is not helping me. Last month attested to that, but I am not ready to sell it quite yet either. You moving in for a few months will let me decide what to do with it while I am not actually living in it.”

“Merlin, Jesus, I don’t know…”

“It would be a big help, lad, for both of us I think.”

“Let me think about it, yeah? I’ll give you an answer in the morning.”

Eggsy takes him up on it after swearing that he won’t change a thing inside, which Merlin says he can but is secretly pleased he won’t. Maybe the move will be good for both of them. Eggsy can get to know Harry in a round about way while Merlin can, well not really move on, but perhaps close the gaping wound in his chest.

He scrolls through the Kingsman property portfolio during his down time, looking for something that would suit him, a single male with no intention of ever not being single ever again. Ali had poked him in the ribs with the gun he was cleaning when he told him that.

“You shouldn’t say never, Ian. You could meet someone tomorrow,” he had said.

“Really? How many men have you been seeing lately? Knocking London dead with your magnificent cock every night?”

“It is magnificent isn’t it?” Alistair asked, flashing him a full smile.

“It is, but you’re deflecting.”

“That’s rich. But you’re right, I haven’t been dating anyone. Can’t bring myself to muster up the energy. It seems like so much _work_ now. All these apps and nudes and whatnot. I don’t want to see a man’s cock before I take him to dinner. Christ, it’s like unwrapping the present before you even bought it.”

“We’ve gotten old, Ali.”

“We have and I am fine with it. And I am fine with what I have in my life now.”

“I’m getting there.”

Alistair squeezed his hand. “I know, Ian. It’s not a race.”

—————

Merlin wraps the tape around the box once more, ensuring it will not open in transit. He stands and shakes out the pins and needles in his legs, looking around to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. His, and Harry’s, clothes are packed. His in luggage and Harry’s in storage boxes. All of Merlin’s tech has already been taken to his new flat, along with the few personal items he is taking, some of Harry’s favorite books, one of his robes, and the cup he drank out of before he left the morning of the dog test. Merlin has washed it, yes, and he uses it every morning when he is home.

After carrying the last of the boxes downstairs, giving them to the movers and giving the men instructions on where everything goes, both flat and storage, he walks around the house one last time.

In the kitchen he runs his hand down the countertop and thinks of the mornings he leaned against it watching Harry as he made breakfast.

_“Surely there must be something more interesting that you could do, Ian, rather than watching me peel potatoes.”_

_“I can’t think of anything. I find that apron quite distracting Mr. Hart. You should take it off.” Ian had answered, sipping his tea and admiring the long, handsome lines of Harry._

_“I will not cook breakfast in the nude to satisfy your base urges. Have you ever had potato peels fall on your cock?” Harry asked while shaking a half naked potato at him before he continued peeling._

_“I can’t say that I have,” Ian answered._

_Harry straightened and flung a peel at him with such precision that it did land right on Ian’s cock before it slithered off. Ian choked on his tea._

_“That is why you never stand about in a kitchen nude, Ian. Let that be a lesson,” Harry said right before he ran out of the room on those long legs, Ian in hot pursuit._

In the living room he thinks of those nights when they were both home, which happened more rarely than they would have liked, where Ian would tinker while Harry watched some godawful show on telly, sniffling until Ian put down his project and held out one arm. Harry would then curl up against him, snug and warm, and share tidbits about the show that Ian couldn’t give any less of a fuck about but loved hearing because Harry said them.

Merlin goes upstairs and into the bedroom. The master bed is gone, already moved to his flat and a new one sits in pieces on the floor in the corner, it’s mattress and box springs leaning against the wall.

_“Harry, come with me now, I’ve drawn you a bath,” Ian coaxed, “please.” Harry was sitting on the bench at the foot of the bed, suit still on despite the fact that it was caked with blood, soot, and mud. His hair fell to the side of his head, limp without the aid of his product to hold it in its normal style. Harry lifted his head and Ian’s heart broke to see those brown eyes, usually so warm and full of life, flat._

_“I’m really not the best company right now, Ian. I would like to be alone for a while.” Harry’s voice was monotone._

_“I don’t think that is best.”_

_Harry had burst into motion, standing so quick that it caused Ian to rear back in surprise. “What the fuck do I care about what_ you _think is best, Ian? Are you my caretaker now? Have you decided I need ‘handling’ at home?”_

_Ian sighed internally. The mission had gone to shit in the most spectacular fashion so he knew Harry was going to be a mess tonight. Harry, in true Harry fashion, was lashing out at the thing closest to hand, which was Ian, and if Ian lashed back as Harry so obviously wanted him to, they would end up in medical with bloodied faces._

_“I am not handling you, you complete tit, I am caring for you if you would fucking let me.”_

_“What part of ‘I would like to be alone’ were you too stupid to fucking understand? I don’t want to be cared for, I want to be_ alone _and I want a fucking drink. If you want to care for me so much, bring me one and then fuck off somewhere where you are wanted.”_

_“I don’t think I will, but thank you for the suggestion.”_

_Harry lifted his hands and moved forward to push Ian away from him. Harry, being tired, emotionally compromised, and Ian would later find out, wounded, was not as fast as he thought he was and Ian was able to catch his arms, spin him around and tuck his back against Ian’s chest, his arms holding Harry’s to his sides while he struggled._

_“Does this make you feel like a big boy, Ian, controlling me like this? It must get so boring being fucking Merlin, never getting out of the manor to do some real work, like me, like an agent, not that you could hack being one.”_

_Ian held him tighter as he struggled. “I will care for you tonight, Harry. I would prefer it to be a bath and me holding you, but this will do as well.”_

_“Fuck you,” Harry said even while his struggling became weaker. “I don’t need to be cared for. You think I can’t handle a mission that goes to hell? I’ve handled more than you can even dream of. Who cares if people died, it was necessary to achieve the objective which I fucking did because I. Get. The. Job. Fucking Done. Mission accomplished. Target fucking acquired. I don’t want your care. I don’t want it, I don’t need it and I don’t need you._

_“If you want to comfort someone, why don’t you go and find the husband of the,” Harry choked on his words and all the tension that was holding him upright falls away. He slumps into Ian’s chest, panting._

_“Harry, breathe with me, alright?” He twined their hands together, placing them on Harry’s chest, breathing in and out slowly until Harry matched it._

_Harry stared at their hands, his still had blood in the nails and knuckles. “She was pregnant and I had to let that piece of shit put a bullet in her brain while her husband screamed for me to help her because it was her life or the lives of the entire city had that virus made it into the water supply. She was young and she looked at me like she understood what was happening. That’s what makes it worse, Ian, is that she_ forgave _me right before the bullet shattered her skull.”_

_Ian held him while he sobbed. When Harry had regained some semblance of control, he ran a new bath, and bathed Harry as he stared and stared. He stitched up the bullet graze he found when he had undressed him. He made Harry a cup of tea afterwards, gave him a sleeping pill which Harry took, and wrapped himself around Harry all night. In the morning he called the manor, informed them that he would not be in, nor would Harry, for the next three days, or more, if he decided he needed it. Chester could shove it straight up his fucking arse if he had a problem with it._

_They were back to work in two, Harry rousing himself and pulling it together. The woman’s death haunted him for months, but he moved forward with the help of Ian’s hand on his back._

The office looks bare without the _Sun_ covers, which were wrapped with care and sent to storage, and Merlin’s tech. He knows Eggsy has problems coming in here, and he hopes he can make some different memories when he and Tilde move in to overwrite the bad.

His last stop is the loo and a goodbye to Mr. Pickle. “I am not sorry I am leaving you, wee rat dog,” he says as he leans against the door frame, completely serious. “I know Harry loved you to the point of absurdity, but I’ve always found you a little disturbing. Besides you remind me too much of the time I wasted, time I would give anything to have back now, and it makes me hate myself a little more each fucking day.” He walks over to the dog on the shelf and pats his head. “Watch over Harry’s boy for him while he’s here and I’ll watch over him while he’s out there. Wouldn’t do to lose two Galahad’s, would it?”

Right before he walks out the door he turns and takes one last look at the house. He cannot shake the feeling that he will never see it again and he wants to burn it into his memory. This house has seen him and Harry at their best and their worst.

“I love you,” he whispers and walks out the door.

—————

Merlin’s flat suits him. It’s one bedroom with a small living room and kitchen. Nothing big, nothing showy, just cool metallic lines with deep woods, and modern appliances. He buys all new furniture for it and pretends he doesn’t miss the lumpy, old sofas that Harry had kept out of sheer spite.

The best thing about it, however, is that he doesn’t need to get completely pissed to be in it. There are a few things of his and Harry’s here. Photos on the wall, a few suits Merlin just could not pack away, Harry’s poncy fucking soap that Merlin is addicted to, but nothing that makes his heart stop and his chest seize and his brain to short out.

He still drinks. Christ, he’s too old to quit now. But he no longer blacks out. Eggsy brings him far less food, which he misses but he is an adult who can fend for himself. The takeaway containers in the trash attest to that. Plus, the lad no longer has to worry about him eating a bullet. Merlin no longer worries about him eating a bullet.

It’s good, he thinks as he drinks his whiskey and slowly plays with the ring that has never left the chain around his neck. He’s healing, he thinks as he sits there in the dark.

God, he misses Harry, he thinks as he curls in on himself, sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know if you see something I missed. Thanks so much for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months Seven and Eight after V-Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is allowing me to post chapters quicker than I expected, so I am going to keep doing so until I can't. :)

**Seven months after V-Day**

On a rare night home, Merlin is startled by someone knocking at his door. He lays aside his tablet and sketch pad where he was fiddling with a new idea, pocket squares that can double as gas masks, and tucks one of the various guns he has hidden about the flat in the back of his jeans.

He contemplates putting on a shirt but then realizes it won’t offer too much protection if the person on the other side of the door is bent on putting a bullet in him. He walks over to the door, his bare feet making no sound on the floorboards, to look through the peephole. If an assassin is stupid enough to be standing there on the other side, they deserve the bullet he is about to put in their gut.

Instead, it’s Alistair, his eyes darting around, no doubt taking issue with the lack of security, that he can see, on the outside of Merlin’s flat.

Merlin opens the door. “Alistair?” has asks, puzzled not only by the impromptu visit, but the fuzzy cashmere jumper he is wearing. Merlin can count all the times he's seen Alistair not wearing a suit on one hand.

Alistair pushes in past him carrying two bottles of whiskey. “I felt like getting completely pissed and didn’t want to do it alone. Fancy joining me?”

Merlin shrugs. “Why not? Should we ring Mummy Eggsy beforehand so someone knows to look for us when our old arses die of alcohol poisoning?”

“I’m younger than you by seven years.”

“And stodgier by at least fifteen.”

Ali laughs as he pulls two glasses out of Merlin’s sink. He sniffs them. “Are these clean?”

“For fuck’s sake, man, why wouldn’t they be?”

“I saw how the Mews looked half the time. I thought it best to ask.”

“Go fuck yourself. The pub down the street has clean glasses if you don’t trust mine.”

“No matter, the alcohol will sanitize them if they aren’t.”

As they sit back with their respective drinks, the bottles on the coffee table, Merlin notices Alistair staring into his glass.

“They're clean, Ali, stop looking for flecks of cereal or whatever you’re looking for.”

He doesn’t reply, he just drinks his glass down in one swallow and pours himself another.

“Right. Seems like we are doing this up proper,” Merlin says as he follows suit. Wouldn’t do to fall behind. “Not that I am not pleased you’re here, but why _are_ you here?”

“I figured it was high time I paid you a housewarming visit and bring you a gift.”

“Oh, you have a gift for me?”

“Yes, my presence.”

“Christ. Let me find my boots. I don’t want to have to wade through all of this bullshit in my bare feet.”

A bottle later Alistair has pulled off his jumper and has the top three buttons off his shirt undone. Merlin eyes the small triangle go skin visible at Alistair’s neck. He blames it on the drink.

“I like it,” Alistair interjects into the comfortable silence that had grown around them.

“What’s that?”

“The flat. It’s as if your flat that you had back in your days as Elyan has grown up.”

“That’s good I suppose?” Merlin blinks and looks around. It’s just his flat. Just a place to put his shit and himself when he can’t bury himself at work. He didn’t put a lot of thought into it.

“You never saw my flat while James was still alive. While Harry’s aesthetic was care home chic, James tended more towards terrible, 1970’s shag holes. It was a disaster trying to find common ground between my _stodginess_ as you said and his horrid taste.”

“Is that why we never came over there for dinner?”

“God, yes. Was it that noticeable?”

“No, I never thought about it until just now, that we always got together at Harry’s. I just figured Harry assumed that everyone would rather be at his so that’s where we ended up.”

“Believe me, Ian, I would have rather lived with those lumpy sofas of Harry’s than let him see the shag carpet in the office.”

Merlin chokes on his whiskey picturing Harry’s face. It would have been priceless.

Halfway through the second bottle things begin to go a little hazy. It is as if one moment they were laughing about the various things Harry would have said upon seeing said carpet and the next Merlin is noticing Alistair’s eye on him, hot and needy. Merlin never put on a shirt. He doesn’t know if he regrets that or not.

“You’re terribly distracting sitting over there, all that skin on display.”

“You say that as you sit over there, your buttons undone, looking like the lord of the manor taking his ease.”

Alistair puts his drink down and crawls into Merlin’s lap.

“This might not be the best idea, Ali,” Merlin’s says even as his hands come up to pull Alistair against him.

“No, this is a _terrible_ idea, Ian. Horrible, something we will both most likely regret, but I am lonely and I know you are too, so let’s not think about it until we have to.”

“I can live with that,” Merlin says, reaching one hand up to Alistair’s nape and pulling him down into a kiss.

Alistair melts against him with a sigh, their cocks pressing together through their clothes. Alistair’s hands dragging up his chest, pinching at his nipples until Merlin is panting into his mouth before he abruptly gets off of him.

“Jesus, now you change your mind?” Merlin asks, stupid with how fucking hard his cock is. If Alistair leaves now, he will have to go and pull someone. Have to.

“Not at all. Just wondering where your bed is,” Alistair says, pulling off his clothes.

Merlin grabs him by the waist of his trousers. “Right this way.”

Time slips again and Merlin realizes he is two fingers deep in Alistair and the man is fucking himself down on Merlin’s hand with abandon.

“Fucking hell,” he says between bites to Alistair's thighs.

“Come on, Ian, get in me already, please.”

“Let me find a condom.”

“Fuck the condom. We haven’t been with anyone else since… _fuck_ , we are fine.”

Merlin hesitates. Harry is the only one he has ever went bareback with, ever. It was something he only ever wanted to share with Harry. But this was Alistair, and…

“Ian?” Alistair asks, his hand touching Merlin’s face. “I’m sorry, we don’t have to do this. You’re right, this is a terri…”

Merlin silences him by kissing him as he lines up and pushes in. Slowly, so slowly, so he can feel every inch of Alistair’s arse clenching around him, pulling him in. Slick, hot, and ever so tight.

“ _Jesus Christ,_ ” Alistair breathes as Merlin enters him. “Yes, god fucking yes.”

Merlin thrusts at a lazy pace, his whole being concentrating on the feel of Alistair grasping at him, his legs wrapped around Merlin’s waist, his tongue in Merlin’s mouth. He keeps his mind on that, just the feel of Alistair, not what this is, not what it could mean.

At some point they both start crying. There are still moans coming from them both between the thrusting, the sound of skin on skin, the gentle glide of their tongues together, but there will also tears slipping down their faces. Alistair is the first man he has touched since Harry, and he would bet the wedding ring that thumps against his chest with every movement that he is the first man Percival has touched since James.

And it’s good it’s them being the first for each other. There is comfort in the familiar scent of their bodies together. Their movements are in sync like those of lovers who know the other intimately and it feels so good to have someone pressed against him. So good.

But with the good, the comfort, and the tight clench of Alistair around his cock comes the knowledge that neither of them are in the arms they truly desire. At most they are placeholders, a good enough, a substitution for the men that they can no longer have. That they will never have again.

Harry’s voice flashes through his mind from the night of Valentine’s dinner, _“If something ever does happen, I do not want you to be alone, rattling around this house like a marble in a tin can. Find someone else and be happy with my blessing. You and Alistair could pick up where you left off.”_

Merlin’s heart breaks and he sobs even as he continues to thrust, even as he feels his impending orgasm tightening his bollocks. Alistair tightens his arms and legs around him, his hand cradling Merlin’s head, keeping it tight in the crook of Alistair’s neck. Alistair shakes underneath him, the trembling of a man coming part at the seams. His hips thrust up to meet Merlin’s encouraging him to go faster, harder, his movements desperate. The tears slipping down Alistair’s face slide down on to Merlin’s and mix with his. He can feel Alistair come, and Merlin does his best to make it good for him.

Alistair crushes Merlin against him when he does, sobbing with it now, his broken voice whispering, “ _James, James,_ ” unknowingly, Merlin thinks, as his cock pulses between them. Merlin follows him over the edge digging his teeth into Alistair’s shoulder, his mind answering, “ _Harry…”_

Harry.

Merlin wakes to the strange sensation of a body pressed up against him and an arm lying across his waist. The arm tightens and he knows that Alistair has woken up as well.

 _Somewhere Harry is laughing,_ Merlin thinks as he rolls over to say good morning to Alistair.

—————

Harry is not laughing. Not in the least. He was sleeping, before Whiskey, who Harry now knows as Jason’s Jack, came storming into Harry’s room without so much as a “good evening,” causing the lights to come on and Harry to sit up on the bed on the middle of the room. Harry shakes his head and blinks, trying to pull himself together to face whatever the fuck this mess is going to be.

“Butterfly Guy!” Jack says. “Wake up, sleepy head, I want to talk to you. Just got back and everyone is asleep. No one here to keep Old Jack company. So I thought to myself, who likes it when he has visitors? Who likes to keep lonely assholes like me and Tequila and hell, maybe even Champ, company? Fucking Butterfly Guy does!” He lifts his arms like he is a musician on stage and he is calling for applause. “So here I am.”

“I am afraid I am not at my best for company, Jack. Perhaps you can come back in the morning.”

“That’s not mannerly, now is it? Tequila told me you were always so nice. In fact Tequila talks about you a lot. I figured there was something I missed the first time I met you, maybe you aren’t the fucking idiot I thought you were if Tequila thinks you’re something. So surprise me, show me why Tequila thinks you’re just fucking dandy.”

Harry is coming around now, his head clearing as he scents the alcohol in the air. Jack has been drinking and looks like he just crawled out of a barn. He’s not wearing a jacket, his button-up shirt is unbuttoned to mid chest, and his cowboy hat sits on his head, tipped back like he just ran a dirty handkerchief across his brow. Harry very much doubts he is here to be, as Jason puts it, neighborly. He swings his legs off the bed and stands, moving towards the sink so he can splash some cold water on his face, and so he can put the bed between them.

“Again, I would appreciate it if you came back another time, Jack.”

“Not surprised yet, Butterfly Guy. Nope, so far all you’re showing me is a big sack of nothing. Maybe it’s not your conversational skills that impressed Tequila so much. Maybe it’s something else you can do with that mouth. You want to show me what else you can do besides talk?” Jack grabs his crotch and leers.

“I do beg your pardon?”

“You ain’t got to beg, Butter… Butter, I like that. Anyway,” he says as he lopes forward, a sway to his hips that isn’t sexual as much as it is predatory, “like I said, _Butter_ , you ain’t got to beg. You’re not my type, but still, beggars can’t be choosers and all.”

Harry moves around the bed once more.

“Playing hard to get? Come on, I won’t tell nobody. Come here and give Daddy some sugar.”

“I want you to leave. _Now_ ,” Harry says, adrenaline spiking through his veins.

“And I want you to get on your fucking knees. Which one of us is going to get what they want do you think?”

Jack surprises Harry but vaulting over the bed to land in front of him. He grabs Harry by the throat and punches him, the blow lessened by Harry moving his head with it. Harry lashes out on pure instinct, bringing his left arm up to knock Jack’s hand off of him while driving his right into the man’s stomach. Jack staggers back and grins.

“Now we are getting somewhere. Let’s get this over with,” he says, making the “come on” gesture.

“I have no desire to fight you. Just leave and we can forget this ever happened.”

“No way, you just got interesting. I ain’t leaving now.”

“Please. We don’t have to do this.” Harry realizes that he is cataloging the places on Jack’s body that will cause the most pain when he drives his fist into them. This is the most alive he has felt in months.

“I think we fucking do. You touched something that wasn’t yours and I intend to get my pound of flesh for it.”

“I wasn’t aware Jason was yours. In fact, I am quite clear on the fact that he said you two were nothing but ‘fuck buddies.’ Dreadful term, that.” Harry shifts his weight.

“What the fuck do you know about me and Tequila? Nothing, that’s what. You think because the kid came in here, shared some of his drugs and let you come down his throat he _likes_ you? You were fucking convenient because I weren’t here and he has fucking Daddy issues.”

“Seemed quite up for it to me. The way he was moaning my name in my ear gave me the first clue.”

“You candy ass fucker,” Jack yells as he lunges. He attempts to tackle Harry around his middle to take him to the floor but Harry side steps him, driving his elbow into the back of Jack’s skull as he goes to the floor empty handed.

Jack’s ridiculous hat flies off his head. Harry grins. This was turning out to be a lot more fun than he expected. His body just _moved_. Without him telling it to.

“Certainly you can see this absurd, Jack.”

“I can’t see shit.”

Harry falls to the floor when Jack kicks his legs out from under him. He sees lights flashing when his head catches the corner of the bed on the way down. While he is disoriented Jack rolls him over on his stomach. His knees are next to Harry’s hips, Harry’s right arm is twisted behind him, and he can feel Jack’s forearm pressing down against the base of his skull. The pressure is pushing Harry’s face into the padded floor. He can’t get a deep breath in. He struggles, a buzzing taking up residence in his head. His central nervous system goes electric.

Jack leans down, pressing him tighter against the floor, and speaks into his ear.

—————

Jack has to admit that the old fucker fought better then he expected, which makes him think that whatever training he has, whoever he might be, isn’t as far below the surface as he is playing it out to be. This guy is more than what he seems, Jack would bet his Silver Pony on that. He pushes Butter’s head into the floor just enough to cut off a little air, just enough to make him, _just like that_ , he thinks as Butter jerks under him, panic. He leans down to speak into Butter’s ear.

“You’ll want to listen to me even though I ain’t moaning shit,” he says, tugging up on Butter’s arm to clarify his mind with the pain. “I could kill you like this. Press you into the floor until you stop breathing. Separate and snap your neck. Lots of ways to kill a man and I know most, so listen good, Butter. Tequila needs someone that is going to make him better. Get him off the drugs. Make him into a fucking man and not some fucking waste case. He doesn’t need some candy-ass granddaddy like you making him think it’s okay to get high and stick his cock into anything that can’t run faster than he can, you fucking get me?”

Butter mumbles something.

“I beg your pardon,” Jack says, mocking Butter’s accent as he eases up just enough on Butter’s head so he can raise it and speak.

“I said, get this.”

The hand that was flailing around while Butter panicked grabs him by his fringe and smashes his nose into the back of Butter’s head. He hears cartilage crunch and blood runs down his face. He kneels up, grabbing at his nose.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles around the blood.

Butter flips around under him, his trim hips rotating between his knees and while Jack is trying to get the situation back under control, Butter lays him out good with a fist to the fucking chin. Jack falls back on his ass like some green fucking agent before scrambling to his feet.

Jack doesn’t think Butter is Butter anymore. Nope. The guy in front of him ain’t pinning anything to a wall unless it’s Jack, and he don’t mean in the fun way either. Butter’s eye is flat, ruthless, and he moves the way a knife moves through skin. Lethal. Deadly. For the first time Jack appreciates the fact that Butter isn’t some weird fucking butterfly asshole. He is an agent, like Jack, which means he knows just as many ways to kill a man as Jack does, and Jack thinks Butter knows a few fucking more than he does.

Right. Strategic retreat.

“Come now, Jack. I thought you wanted to chat? What’s wrong? Your blood going down your throat making it hard to speak?” Butter takes a step towards him just as Jack shoots out the door, hitting the button to slam it behind him.

“Lovely talk,” Butter says from the other side of the glass. “Do stop by again.”

—————

**Eight months after V-Day**

Eggsy finishes breaking down the last box and gives it to the movers to take away before walking back into the house and standing in the foyer. JB is off somewhere exploring, hopefully not pissing on anything, and Eggsy? Eggsy feels a bit out of whack.

When he stepped into this house for the first time, almost two years ago, during his twenty-four hours with Harry, he was so happy. Happy to have a purpose for the first time since he signed up for the Marines, happy to see the pride in Harry’s eyes when he looked at him because no one looked at Eggsy like that ever, happy to just spend time with a man who Eggsy already adored.

Now.

Well.

Now it is bittersweet because those happy memories are woven through with the memories of harsh arguing in the loo, blood in a church, and the endless view of blue Kentucky sky. He can’t even imagine what it was like for Merlin to step foot in here. Thirty years of memories, good and bad, and then one day knowing that there will never be more.

Ever.

He wipes his face with his sleeve. Getting all weepy. Christ.

He walks through the house slowly, picking things up here and there, wondering about them. Merlin had told him that the house was this much of a stuffy nightmare when he first came to visit Harry, and Harry, being a stuffy nightmare himself, had only added to it, making it a charity shop full of toile, tea pots, and china. The only thing Merlin touched was the office, which Eggsy isn’t quite ready to go in yet. He will, soon, but not yet.

He promised Merlin he wouldn’t change anything, so he won’t, and he doesn’t want to because this is all Harry’s, but he’s fucked if he knows what Tilde is going to say. Then again, he’s taken her to his old neighborhood and she didn’t blink an eye, so she might surprise him. She usually does.

He searches through the book cases laughing at some of the books that must have been Harry’s Auntie’s, of course, knowing Harry, maybe not. There are some first editions that belong in a museum and should not have grubby little chav fingers all over them, some well worn modern spy novels. _Tinker Tailor Solider Spy_ seems a particular favorite so Eggsy nabs that to start before bed tonight.

On the very bottom shelf, under a huge book on men’s formal wear, _honestly, Harry_ , is a picture album. He figured out of everything in the house, the photos would be the things that Merlin would be sure to take.

He feels like he is intruding on something special when he opens it. Harry wouldn’t care. If Harry was here they would sit on one of the ugly sofas together, drinking tea out of some tea pot the Queen gave Harry’s grandmother or some shit, and Harry would tell him all the stories and the memories behind each photo. Merlin, if he was home, would either hide in the office or make grumpy noises at them when they laughed too loud.

Tears appear in Eggsy’s eyes and he can’t breathe for how much he wants that. Wants those two men to make a place for him in their lives. A warm place that he can curl up in and just be. A place of laughter and tea and grumpy noises.

But Harry isn’t here. And Merlin, he’s getting better, thank fucking god, but Eggsy, who as a child watched his mother mourn her husband and fall in and out of a bottle, knows Merlin’s a long way off from being well. Eggsy may not bring him food and pick his piss drunk arse up off the loo floor anymore, but if that man thinks Eggsy ain’t watching him, he’s as dumb as Dean looked.

Eggsy carries the album over to the coffee table and then goes to the kitchen to make some tea in the fussiest pot he can find. Jokes on him when that is all he _can_ find. Not a normal tea pot in the place. It almost makes him start crying again and he understands Merlin’s refusal to be sober here.

Once he is comfortable with his tea and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he looks through the photos. The handsome bloke that Percival looks at with stars in his eyes must be James, Roxy’s adoptive dad. Eggsy _loves_ his fashion sense. Some of his suits makes Eggsy’s eyes bleed and he plans on asking the tailors of they have any of the fabrics or patterns left from them.

Once he asks if seeing him in them would be like punching Rox or Perce in the face. He’s rough, to be sure, but he’s not a fucking arsehole.

One photo stops him dead, though. It is out in the small garden behind the house. Harry is sitting on one of the chairs. The chair Merlin was sitting in with that fucking gun…

Anyway.

Harry sits on one of the chairs and Merlin is on the ground between Harry’s knees. Harry has some linen trouser and shirt thing that normally Eggsy would find over the top, but somehow, with Harry’s hair curling free in the wind, he pulls off. Merlin is his opposite in faded jeans, bare feet and grandad jumper that has to be Harry’s. Merlin’s head tilts up at Harry and he is saying something to him, a smile forming on his face, while Harry looks down, already laughing, his large hands cradling Merlin’s skull. But what get’s Eggsy is their eyes. Eggsy can see the love in their eyes. He can see it in Percival and James’s, sure, but what he sees between Harry and Merlin is _blinding_ in its intensity.

Weepy. _Again_.

He keeps going through the photo album, sometimes pulling the photos out as gentle as he can, to read Harry’s proper, scrawling writing on the back. _James and Alistair, Paris Trip 2007_. _Ian in repose_ — this is one is of Merlin practically nude, a towel protecting his modesty, and Eggsy just had to know if Harry, the dirty git, had written something — _Ibiza 2013._ To which Merlin wrote under it _Harry being a pervert, also Ibiza 2013._

Even as he goes through the photos, he returns to that garden snap. Eggsy aches with how much he wishes he could have seen them together, to have been around that because he don’t know shit about healthy relationships, and while he gets the feeling Merlin and Harry went through a lot of fucking shit to get to the point they were in that picture, he thinks it might mean all the more for it.

More than anything he wants to ask Harry how he does it, how he makes a relationship work like Merlin and Harry so obviously did. How does he keep that light in someone’s, maybe Tilde’s, eyes? How does he keep it in his? All he knows of relationships, besides the scant memories he has of his mum and dad, is all snarled up in control, open palm slaps to vulnerable skin, and yelling.

He could ask Merlin, but much like he ain’t popping into the next round table meeting wearing a mustard yellow, checked suit, he ain’t going to ask Merlin how he and Harry loved each other so much.

Even though he wants to. God, he does. Because he likes Tilde. He might even love her, but he doesn’t know how to love her the way he should without worrying every moment that he is fucking it up. Because that’s what he does, he fucks things up no matter how hard he tries not to.

He takes a picture of the photo and hides it deep on his phone. He will leave the album in Merlin’s office tomorrow, and he certainly can’t keep the photo, but he wants to have it with him. He wants to look at it as a reminder of what love is, what it can be, so when he feels like he’s walking a tightrope in a dark room with no idea of where his feet are going he can look at it and know that people make it work. Harry and Merlin did. If those two clusterfucks of emotionally repressed arseholes can find something that makes them look at each other like that, then maybe some little shit chav from the wrong side of the city can make a princess look at him the same way.

In the morning he sneaks into Merlin’s office while he is out terrifying the new recruits and leaves the album on the desk with a thermos of tea and a lunch that has actual vegetables in it. Merlin ain’t getting scurvy on his watch.

—————

Merlin lies in bed, arm wrapped around Alistair who is snuffling against his chest, staring at the ceiling.

 _What am I doing,_ he thinks. He wants to ask Alistair, wake him up and grab him by the shoulders and shake him, ask him, what are _we_ doing? He won’t though, because Alistair is sleeping the sleep of the truly shagged out, and just because Merlin is awake self-flagellating, doesn’t mean Alistair needs to be as well.

It’s not as if he is cheating on Harry. He tightens his arm around Alistair who mumbles something and goes back to snoring. No, Harry practically gave Merlin his blessing to start something new with Ali, not that Merlin thought he, _they_ , would.

This seems like something more than the mutually beneficial, and sporadic, arrangement that they had all those years ago. They have been spending most of the time Ali is home together, either here or at Ali’s, having dinner, spending time together, doing nothing together. Almost like they are dating.

And the sex. Merlin knows he's no slouch in the bedroom. Harry always enjoyed himself, Ali seems to as well, but fucking hell, it’s like they are in their twenties again. No surface, wall, or room is safe if they are in it.

He and Ali love each other. There is no way for them not to with the history they have. Ali is the dearest friend he has and he would take every bullet that was in that damn bunker on V-Day to keep him safe, but he knows he is not _in love_ with him. Merlin has been in love with Harry for so long he doesn’t know if he can love anyone else, not like he loved, _loves,_ Harry. He’s not even sure he wants to. Especially not another agent. He knows he can’t survive it a second time.

He shifts on the bed, smiling at the ache in his thighs and arse. Get a few drinks in Ali and that man would tear you apart. He would…

“Are you planning on sleeping or just lying there all night having a meltdown?”

“Actually, I was just thinking about what a monster in bed you are, but a few moments before that, yes, I was having a meltdown.”

“Christ,” Ali says, sitting up. “Let me at least get some fucking tea for this,” he says as he brushes his lips across Merlin’s cheek.

“A whiskey for me, thanks.”

“It’s only four in the morning, why wouldn’t it be a good time for whiskey?” Ali mutters.

He comes back a few minutes later, glass and bottle in one hand, tea in the other, and sits on cross-legged on the bed. Merlin opens his mouth to speak and Ali just holds up a hand, leaving it in the air until he has finishes his tea and goes back for a second cup. He resumes his position.

“Right. Let’s have it then.”

“What are we doing?”

“Drinking in bed?”

“Piss off,” Merlin says and throws the nearest thing to hand at him, which is his pants.

“If those had gone in my tea we would have found out if you still keep up with your hand to hand training.”

“I have, and I wasn’t aiming for your tea. You know perfectly well what I mean, Ali. What are we doing? Are we dating? Are we fucking?”

“We are most definitely fucking,” Ali replies with a wink.

“Oh my god.”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me. I think too highly of you to have you be some rebound shag while I am grieving for my dead lover. And I would like to think you feel the same about me.”

“It’s been almost two years since James died and you're the first man I have desired since. I’m enjoying myself. We're two friends who enjoy each other’s company and have fantastic sex. I am in no hurry to put a label on it. We never needed one before.”

“We had a finite lifespan then.”

“Ian, I am a Kingsman agent. _I_ have a finite lifespan.”

Merlin jumps to his feet.

“You say that to me? Like I don’t fucking know that? Like I didn’t watch the man I love die in the field? Fuck, Ali, how could you even fucking say that to _me_?”

“Ian, that was poorly said. I apologize.”

“I can’t go through that again. I can’t watch someone else I care about die in front of me.”

“Hey, sit down again, please? Fuck, I am sorry, Ian. I wasn’t thinking.”

Merlin is panting and his hands are shaking, the video loop of Harrying dying that is never far from his mind sleeping or waking, flickers in and out like a telly with bad reception. Harry. Ali. Harry. Ali. Dead. Dead. He sinks to the floor, his back against the side of the bed and bare arse on the cold wood. He reaches up and grabs the bottle. Ali gets off the bed and sits in front of him.

“Ian, I’m sorry.”

“So you’ve said,” Merlin replies, not looking at him. He sighs. “That’s one thing I was thinking about, was the fact that I will, if I am the unluckiest bastard in the world, be looking at a screen as I see your death coming, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t do that again, Ali. I can’t.”

“Then stop handling me.”

“Not a chance.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Ian. You can’t name yourself Protector of the Realm and yet not be willing to see something you don’t want.”

“I fucking know that, thank you.”

Now Ali sighs. “It’s your decision, Ian, but I am not taking myself out of the field.”

“I’d never ask you to.”

“And we don’t need to put a label on this. Why can’t we just see what happens? Who knows, in six months it may wane like it did the last time, or we may pick out rings,” he jokes. His face falls when he sees Merlin’s hand grab at the one around his neck. “Jesus, I can’t say _anything_ right tonight. Maybe I should go.”

“I can’t love you like I loved him,” Merlin says, forcing the words out, his voice hoarse. "Not now. Not yet."

Ali settles into his lap and takes Merlin’s face in his hands. “I don’t want you to. That love, and the love I have for James, is theirs. It belongs to them. I want you to love me the way _you_ love _me_ , however that is now and however that may be in the future, and I will do the same for you. We aren’t taking their places, Ian, we are building our own next to them. I think they would be happy for us no matter how we end up.”

“You’re very wise sometimes, Ali.”

“No, Ian, you’re just half asleep and a little drunk from the half a bottle of whiskey you just drank at four in the morning.”

Merlin wraps his arms around Ali’s waist and kisses him.

 _What are we doing?_ he thinks.

 _Whatever we want_.

—————

Harry sits on the floor, with the markers, fine-tipped and saturated, that Jason had brought him, drawing and labeling the parts of a Glasswing when he hears the door behind him woosh open. He sighs as his shoulders slump. Whenever Harry can lose himself in his drawings, in his studies, someone always has to come in and interrupt him. He stands turning to greet the interloper, _visitor_ , until he sees that it is Jack.

“Ah, Jack, come to knock some more sense into me then?”

Jack looks down at his boots. “No. I, uh, I actually came to apologize.”

“And what brought this on?”

“Champ said he would string me up and let the maids pretend I was a _piñata_ if I didn’t.”

“Could that still happen if I don’t accept it?”

“Not really, although Champ seems to like you, so maybe you could convince him.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Listen, Butt…, Harry, you and I ain’t going to be friends, ever. You think I’m a hillbilly and I think you’re hiding something. We both are fucking around with the same guy. Put that together and it's just begging for us to go out behind the bar and settle this like men.”

“I think you settled that quite well when you had me on the floor, threatened to snap my neck, and held my face in the padding until I blacked out.”

“I don’t know, you did alright when you broke my nose with the back of your head. You never blacked out.”

“When I what?”

Jack steps further into the room and Harry presses himself to the wall. Jack takes his hat off and lays it on the bed, hooking one hand into the pocket of his jeans and the other points at Harry in accusation.

“You telling me you don’t remember slamming my face into the back of your head, breaking my nose. I call bullshit, buddy. That wasn’t a lucky flail, that was a calculated move.”

Harry reaches up and rubs his crown. He remembers it being sore after his _conversation_ with Jack but he decided Jack had just hit him while he was out. Seemed in character with the man, to hit a man while he was down.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“See that’s what I mean. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Someone doesn’t fight like you do and not have training. I’ve been on the receiving end of that Alpha shit of Ginger’s and once they pushed the right buttons, I remembered who the fuck I was. I don’t trust you, Butter.”

“Back to the pet names, I see,” Harry says, rolling his eyes.

“Fuck this. I apologized like I said I would. Champ ain’t stupid enough to think we would make nice so that’s one thing I don’t have to pretend to give a shit about. I meant what I said though, stay away from Tequila. I may not have a claim on him but he doesn’t need someone else fucking with his head.”

“Someone other than you, you mean.”

“I don’t fuck with his head. I am trying to get him on the straight and narrow, stop fucking around with the goddamn drugs.”

“But on your terms, correct? The straight and narrow as _you_ see it. That’s not taking care of him, Jack, that is controlling him. He’s a grown man and he can make his own decisions as to what he puts in his body and who he spends time with.”

“I think you and I will have some more words very soon, Butter. I think one of these times it’s going to end up with one of us dead.”

Ginger visits him the next day, her small, perfunctory knock announcing her before she comes in.

“Harry, how are we feeling today.”

“The same as I do every day, madam, bored to tears and wondering why I am still here.”

“We have to make sure…”

“Yes, yes, that I am not a danger to myself and to others. By now you see that I am not going to harm anyone.”

“The broken nose Whiskey had says differently.”

“He attacked me. And I have no recollection of breaking his nose.”

“That’s what worries me, Harry. Every single time something like this happens, you have no recollection.Granted the… episodes are getting more infrequent, but that could just mean that you are getting better at hiding them, hiding from us.”

Harry throws up his hands. “If I have all this training you accuse me of having, why haven’t I broken out of where ever this is? Why would I allow myself to be caged like an animal? Why wouldn’t I just leave?”

“Because while we haven’t told you where you are, you would, if you are what we think you are, know that you wouldn’t get very far, and it would tip your hand. You could be waiting for someone to come for you.”

“Who on earth would come for a broken, one-eyed amnesiac?”

“I don’t know, Harry, but until we know that you are not a risk, you stay. I am sorry.”

“You keep saying that, yet I am less inclined to believe you each time. Perhaps it would be better if you allowed Whiskey to take me out back and shoot me.” He lays down on his bed. “If you will excuse me Ginger, I am exhausted and would like a nap.”

“How about this? If the episodes stop, when we know you are safe, I will can do some digging, see if I can’t find a place where you can study your butterflies in peace. We have a lot people in a lot of places. Does that sound good?”

“It would sound lovely if I didn’t feel it was a pipe dream. I have been here for how long, seven, eight months? I do not think you have any intention of letting me leave. Decide what to do with me or put me out of my misery, but I can not live this half life trapped in a padded room for much longer. I will take matters into my own hands if needed.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“Not towards you or anyone else, only myself. Ask yourself, Ginger, if you were in my shoes, if my people that you are so convinced I have, were holding you in a room like this, allowing you only invalid clothes and watching you piss, what would you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it and then ask yourself what you would do to end it. I know I am reaching the end of my rope.”

“I’ll talk to Champ about letting you out in supervised walks around the gardens.”

“I have heard that multiple times now, yet I here I am. Please, let me rest.” He closes his eye and does not open it even when he hears her leave.

—————

Harry actually calls for Ginger the next day. She is surprised, he has never, in the entire eight months he has been here, called for anyone.

She hesitates at the door, straightens her lab coat, and knocks. No need to start things off on the wrong foot and he is such a stickler about manners. Must be a British thing.

“Come,” he calls.

“Harry, you asked for me?”

“Yes. I have been thinking about these episodes, or black outs, or what ever the bloody hell they are.”

“And?”

“I was wondering if you might have some sort of medication to stop them, to perhaps kill whatever piece of me, the former me or who ever the hell I was, for good. To stuff him back into the hell he belongs in, because frankly, he doesn’t seem like a very nice person.”

“Harry, think about this. Don’t you want to remember who you are? What if someone is looking for you?”

“If this person I was is as violent as you say I am, that I can be, is it such a loss to forget him forever?”

“I can’t answer that, only you can.”

“Good, then the answer is no. It is not a loss. I don’t care who I was, I only care about who I can be if I am allowed out of this room. I am fifty, or older, and I want to spend the time I have left, whether it is ten months or ten years, pursuing what makes me happy. Somehow I doubt a man like I was had much of anything or anyone who made him happy.”

He looks at Ginger with his one eye, so soft and liquid brown, earnest, sad, and hopeful all at once. She agrees.

“I’m not sure if we have anything that will help, but I will promise I will look. I might have to clear this with Champ though.”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Excuse me?” she asks, surprised.

“You are my attending physician are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then doctor-patient confidentiality covers this if I am not mistaken. I am choosing this of my own free will. I am of sound mind and I am an adult. Unless you have a medical reason I should not do this, I will not have every single decision I can make taken away from me.”

She can see him getting angry and steps backwards towards the door. Only this time he turns away from her first, breathing in and out through his nose, controlling himself before he lashes out.

“I am in control,” she hears him whispering. “I am in _control_.”

Harry saying that to himself, seeing him trying to exert what little control over something like his emotions amid a life where his reactions are the only thing he actually has control over breaks her heart.

“Okay, Harry. I'll agree to this under the following conditions.”

“I’m listening,” he says, still facing away from her.

“One, if I can find something I think will work, you will be honest and open with me about all side effects. Two, if I think this is making the problem worse, or you do not cooperate with me, I will tell Champ. Three, you will talk to someone about what you are going through. It can be me, it can be our therapist, it can be Tequila, but you will have a weekly mental health checkup, something you have adamantly refused to do since being here. I know that is because you don’t trust us, and that’s four, you trust me, as much as you can, and understand that I am just trying to help you.”

“I agree to all. And I will see your therapist. What is her name? Pepsi?”

“Alright, smartass. _His_ name is Morgan.”

“Oh, well that’s a normal name.”

“As in Capt. Morgan, the rum.”

“And you people think I am strange?”

She laughs. “And please, do not sleep with him. He’s a lovely man, but he loves to say that the people he has slept with _have a 'little bit of the Captain_ ’ in them. He thinks it’s hilarious. I just want to punch him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Never mind, it’s not important. Give me a few days and I will see what I can come up with.”

“Excellent. You know where to find me.”

—————

**Nine months after V-Day**

“Eggsy,” Tilde called through the house. “Eggsy Unwin, stop hiding from me.”

“I’m in the office, love, not exactly hiding,” Eggsy called back, turning down his playlist. He had been working hard on making the room his own. After getting the go ahead from Merlin, he got the Kingsman staff to come over and build a sick fucking alcove in the wall for his guns, and controlled by his turntable. There are a couple of his own _Sun_ covers on the wall, and JB has one of his many beds tucked under a table. The desk is the same, and the chair is the same, much like all the furniture in the house. He is trying to overlay the memories of seeing Harry gunned down with happy memories, which is why he is contemplating having Tilde over the desk when she gets in here, or, if she prefers, her having him over it. It doesn’t matter which.

“Eggsy,” she says in the doorway, “I have been looking for you forever.”

“Babe, you just got back in from shopping with Mum five minutes ago. That hardly counts as forever.”

“All your secret spy things in this house are annoying.”

He laughs as she comes over and sits down on his lap. “I have to talk to you.”

“Yeah? What’s up?” he asks as he runs his lips over her neck.

“I am having a small get together at the Palace on Saturday.”

“No prob. I’m on mandatory four day leave. I don’t go back in until Monday.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I will be flying out, alone.” She pulls back so she can look him in the eye, “please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Some important diplomatic function then?”

“No, not really. Some of my girlfriends from childhood are throwing a party and I have to be there.”

“Like a hen party. All girls, I understand.”

“Eggsy, no, there will be husbands and partners there.”

His spine stiffens and he pulls back from her. “Oh, right, wouldn’t do to have the gutter trash there with all the toffs then, yeah? Worried I might embarrass you?”

“No, it’s just that some of these people will be diplomats of a kind and everything must be just so. What is the expression, handle them with children’s gloves?”

“Kid gloves. No I get it,” he says as he moves her off of his lap and stands. “I mean, I’m certainly not trained in how to pretend I am some rich ponce. I might make a mistake, use the wrong fork, make a joke they would consider ‘low class.’ It’s fine, Tilde.”

“You are taking this all wrong,” Tilde says, her voice rising. “I am not embarrassed of you, there are just traditions that must be followed. There are things that must be announced before I appear on your arm publicly at an event that I attend in a royal capacity. It’s not about you.”

“If I was some friend of the family that you grew up with, a silver spoon lodged so far up his arse that his tongue tarnished, would you have already made those announcements?”

She huffs once before she opens her mouth to respond and then closes it again.

“Yeah, right. I’m taking a walk.”

“Eggsy, please, we need to talk about this.”

“Tilde, I’m angry right now and not in the right mind frame to discuss anything. Let me go cool off for a bit.”

He turns away from her, taking one step before her hand reaches out and grabs his arm. He has a temper, he fucking does, and nothing brings every shred of it raging to the surface like a black cloud of violence like being told he ain’t good enough. His first instinct is to… _Jesus._ Every instinct screaming at him is wrong.

Galahad the Kingsman has already used that arm to fling her against the wall opposite, bashing her skull into the wall until she drops unconscious. Eggsy, the chav from the Estates -- who people touched when he didn’t want it, who couldn't escape when he needed to go, and whose mother always pulled him off of Dean instead of the other way around -- has already back-handed Tilde to the floor and is about to give her the same kind of talking to Dean gave him.

This is what he is so frightened of, that he will kill this thing between him and Tilde without trying just by the fact he ain’t good enough for her. He will kill it by mimicking the bullshit he grew up on. That he will be the man he always swore he would never be, a good for nothing _abuser_.

He may be some piece of gutter trash, but he is goddamned if he'll act like fucking Dean. He reaches up — and it shows how Tilde’s upbringing is different from his because she doesn’t flinch, any woman on the Estates would have and backed away — and unzips his hoodie, walking out of it and leaving Tilde holding it in her hand. He turns back and faces her, his eyes glancing over her face before landing somewhere over her right shoulder.

His voice is flat and quiet. “I will only say this once Til, and listen close because I ain’t that posh fucker who has had his nanny wipe his arse for him until he was sixteen. I'm a spy and a killer. I'm a kid from the Estates who was holding frozen peas to his ribs while holding some corn to his mum's face when he was ten,” and _that_ makes her flinch. “I'm someone who has hands put on him when he did not want them more times than he can remember. I'm a dangerous person with a terrible temper and a lot of rage just below the surface. Do _. Not._ Grab me when I'm trying to walk away and keep the worst of me from the best of you, yeah?

“I'm going to take a walk, maybe see Merlin, maybe see the lads. Going to have a few drinks. If I can’t calm down, I won’t be home tonight because I won’t let me be around you like this. I’ll text you if that is the case. If I can calm down, I will come home and we can talk, but only when I am in full control of myself. Get me?”

Her eyes are wide, shining, but her chin is set and she looks him in the eye. “I leave for Sweden tomorrow morning, early. I think we should talk about this now.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, breathing in and out through his nose. She doesn’t understand. All at once he is grateful that she hasn’t had the life that would allow her to and angry for the same fucking reason. “And I say we ain’t. Fuck it, I'm going to stay over at Jamal’s or Merlin’s tonight. We can talk about it when you get back. _If_ you come back. Will you take care of JB tonight or should I bring him with me?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I will. I do not shirk my responsibilities. I face them, like an adult.”

He can feel the back of his neck go hot and cold, tears are forming in his eyes, and his core is trembling.

“Fucking hell,” he yells, crying because he is that fucking angry and he hates it, hates that he shows this weakness. He cannot look her in the eyes. She won’t be back, not now, not now that she has seen this. “I am trying to protect you. To treat you like you should be. I’m not the one fucking hiding you in a different goddamn country while I fuck off with my fancy friends and pretend you don’t exist. You said you didn’t care about what I was, only who I was. Well this is part of who I am, and I am taking it away before it hurts you.”

He sprints down the stairs, grabbing another hoodie from the five hundred that bow the coat rack before he runs out the door.

He wanders aimlessly, people giving someone like him with red eyes and tear stains on his cheek wide berth, especially in Harry’s neighborhood. They tolerate him because of the suits he wears and are scared of him because of who they see underneath those suits.

They ain’t wrong.

He walks in large circles, trying to decide who to go to for whatever it is he needs right now. A sparring partner, a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on. Jamal and Liam will be happy to feed him beer, smoke him up, and let him rant for a bit. But they know nothing but life in the Estates either and all the hell that comes with it. Merlin will definitely be a sparring partner but he will tell him like it is. Someone will offer no shoulder, no comfort, not anything thought of as. Merlin will listen to him and after he will tell Eggsy exactly what he thinks no matter how harsh it is.

He thumbs his phone open and sends a text.

_Got a shoulder I can cry on, mate?_

—————

Merlin does a double take when his phone pings. Who in their right mind would think that he is someone to come cry about something to? For fuck’s sake.

“Put some clothes on, Ali. Looks like Eggsy is stopping by.”

 _Fair warning, Alistair is here_.

_Good, he can be the good cop to your bad cop._

Merlin shrugs. He stands in the kitchen trying to decide if a "shoulder to cry on" event called for tea or whiskey.

“Ali, if you’re upset about something do you want whiskey or tea?”

“Ian, I want whiskey _in_ my tea. Turn the kettle on and open a bottle. He’s a grown man, he can make up his own mind. Besides, I’ll need both if I am supposed be the nice guy.”

“How the fuck do you know he said that?”

“I’m a spy, love. Also, he texted me as well,” Ali said as he slips into the shower.

Eggsy knocks just as Ali walks out in jeans and one of Merlin’s old t-shirts, his hair damp and combed back. Merlin opens the door and Eggsy walks in. The lad has obviously been crying. His eyes are red and he sniffles into his sleeve. Most telling of all, his hoodie doesn’t match his outfit, which Eggsy in his right mind, would never allow.

“Your hoodie doesn’t match,” Merlin points out just to be a prick. He has to get on even ground before this whole night goes off the rails.

“Yeah, fuck you very much. I just grabbed one on the way out the door…” He stops dead when he sees Ali.

“What fresh fucking alternate dimension of hell have I just walked in to? Bruv, you’re wearing jeans. I thought you slept in your suit. Showered in it. I don’t even understand life right now.”

“Yes, yes,” Ali says, rolling his eyes. “Behave yourself or you will have two bad cops instead of one.”

“Understood.”

“Would you like some tea or whiskey, Eggsy?” Merlin asks.

“How about whiskey in my tea? Sit down, both of you, I can fix my own fucking tea. You two want anything?”

“The same,” Ali said, looking smug.

“Me as well, thank you. And you can shut the fuck up,” he says to Ali. He sits down on the sofa and Ali sits down on the other side, facing him.

“Listen, Ian, it might never have been your head on my shoulder, only because it was usually your legs there,” Alistair laughs as Merlin raises an eyebrow and flips him off, “but I sat up with your far better half many a night before you two got your shit together. When a man is having love trouble, he wants tea so strong it can walk on water.”

“I didn’t know Harry came to you about me. Were we still fucking at the time?”

“God no. That would have made me an awful cad. Besides, he thought, as he told me later, that you and I actually dated, so he wasn’t going to come over, drunk and lovelorn, to cry to the man he loved’s boyfriend. No, this was after James and I had been together for a while. After him and that barrister broke up.”

“Claude,” Merlin says, jealous over a dead man’s ex-lover.

“Claude, yes, what a little twat he was. I saw him last month out in Piccadilly, holding hands with someone older than you. He was a gold digger and Harry was well shut of him.”

“He sure the fuck was,” Merlin says, narrowing his eyes.

“Who sure the fuck was what?” Eggsy asks as he comes back in, balancing three mugs of tea. “I put it in mugs because it seemed stupid to pretend we ain’t just swilling this shit.” He plops down in the other chair, legs kicked out and frowning into his mug.

“Well spotted. Now, will you please tell us why you're here bothering us?”

“Til and me got in a fight.”

“I figured as much, Eggsy. If we could proceed past that,” Merlin says.

“Oh, this is where I come in,” Ali says as he reaches over and pats Eggsy’s knee. “Just take your time. Ian is just grumpy because he didn’t have time to shine the top of his head before you came.”

Merlin stretches his long legs out and accidentally kicks Ali in the shin. “Terribly sorry.”

“You two are seriously fucking weird, you know that?”

“Moving along.”

“Til is going home to Sweden tomorrow for some thing with her girlfriends. I thought it was going to be me going with her, you know, casual, hanging out and stuff. When I mentioned that she dropped some shit on me about how even casual things have to be handled delicately when she appears as ‘Crown Princess Tilde,’” Eggsy makes air quotes, “and how traditions or something needs to be followed before we appear together. Told her I bet things would be different if I was some fucking toff.

“I could feel myself getting mad, so I told her I was going to head out for a bit, cool off, and then she grabbed me. Well, not really grabbed me, but she put her hand on my arm to stop me and I swear to god for a split fucking second I thought I was going to hurt her. I really did, and it scared the fuck out of me. She told me I needed to be an adult and talk about things. She doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand what kind of person I am.”

“And what kind of person is that?” Ali asks.

“Not a fucking good one. I grew up seeing every relationship around me show affection by someone getting back handed into a wall. When someone was angry, someone else got hurt. And when she grabbed my arm I saw myself reacting the same way. What kind of fuck up sees themselves doing that to the person they love, yeah?”

“But you didn’t hit her, you left because you knew your temper was too close to the surface. That is a good thing,” Merlin says. Ali nods.

“So is that it, every time her and I have an argument, or me and anyone since I don’t know if she will come back after she saw me blubbering about how I might smack her.” Eggsy stands. “Fuck, you guys don’t understand either, neither of you grew up like this.”

“Eggsy, sit,” Merlin says, using the same tone of command he uses over the comms. Eggsy does.

“I grew up in an orphanage.” Merlin starts. “When they found out I was gay, they beat me, daily, and made to kneel for hours, daily, on stone floors for my ‘sins.’ For years I let my childhood and those cunts that raised me dictate the type of man I was.

“You have a temper. You cut your teeth on violence. You’re now a Kingsman which means that you do terrible things in the name of bettering the world, but they are still terrible things. And you also take care of every single person around you. You, and Ali, might be the only reason I am still alive. You're a father to your sister, a brother to Roxy, and I swear to fucking god if you ever repeat this to anyone they will never find your fucking body, and you are like a son to me. A step-son. Maybe a stray that I could never get rid of once I fed it. But the point remains, you're not the sum of all your shitty experiences. A fuck up like Dean Baker would not have left tonight. He would have beaten the piss out of Tilde. You're better than him. You can be better than him. You just have to let yourself.”

Eggsy blinks back surprised tears. “I just ain’t good enough for her. Why else would she hide me like this?”

“That isn’t her saying that, it’s you,” Alistair says. “And Ian is right, you are more than the sum of your parts. You did the right thing tonight by leaving when you knew it wasn’t safe for you to stay. Do I think you would have hurt her? No, I certainly do not. But you did and you left. Now, you must learn how to deal with arguments without running away, whether you learn it with her or the next person, remains to be seen. And she must love you or she wouldn’t be living here in London in squalor with you.”

“Excuse you? I hardly think that our house qualifies as ’squalor,’” Merlin says, gazing blandly at Ali.

“Tilde was raised in a palace. Old Harry Hubbard’s house is definitely squalor when compared to that.”

Merlin blinks once and then bellows with laughter, startling both Ali and Eggsy. All he can see in his head is the look that would be on Harry’s face if he had heard Ali refer to his house as _Old Harry Hubbard’s_.

“Can you imagine Harry’s face if he would have heard you saying that,” Merlin gets out between laughs and as the Harry in his head grows ever more red-faced and flustered.

“Ian, should we call someone?” To Eggsy he says, “I have known him for an age and I don’t think I have every seen him laugh this much. It’s worrisome.”

Merlin flaps a hand at them as he composes himself. “I’m fine,” he giggles and then continues to do so as Ali’s jaw drops.

“What in the fuck did you put in that tea, Eggsy?”

“Bruv, I don’t even know,” he says, looking into his cup, “I wish I would have put some in mine.”

“I’m good, I swear. Jesus. That is the first time I have laughed about Harry since he died. Thank you, Ali. I just hate you never got to say that to him.” Merlin clamps his teeth around another burst of laughter. “I think he might have disemboweled you with a serving spoon.”

“The fact that that's a true statement only proves the point.”

“That it does.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and ask why that was so funny?”

“It’s a nursery rhyme, Eggsy. _Old Mother Hubbard_?”

“Mate, we didn’t have a lot of nursery rhymes where I’m from unless it was _Roll, Roll, Roll Your Spliff/Pack it Full of Weed_ ,” Eggsy sing-songs.

Merlin throws a magazine at him. “You do understand what we are saying though, right, Eggsy?”

“Yeah, I get you. I just don’t know what I am going to do about it. How do I stay there, next time she pisses me off, and know I ain’t going to become some fucking arsehole?”

“You don’t. You decide not be an abuser every single second she is in front of you. You talk instead of yelling, you discuss the problem instead of dredging up the past. You’ll fuck it up half the time. God knows Harry and I did. We couldn’t have a decent argument half the time without me throwing some woman Harry stuck his cock in in his face or him letting me know how many times I broke his heart in excruciating detail. But we learned.”

“You’re going to have to talk to her,” Ali adds. “She deserves to know why you left. Explain it to her, tell her about your past so she knows that you aren’t using it as an excuse to just take off and drink with your mates, so she understands why you remove yourself from certain situations. James and I both had terrible tempers and there were many times we spent nights in opposite sides of the flat so we wouldn’t pound each other onto the floorboards. She either understands, or she doesn’t, either way that is _her_ problem, not yours.”

“I don’t want to lay the whole sob story at her feet. Nobody cares about all that.”

“Eggsy, if she doesn’t care about that, then she doesn’t care about you. Understood?” Ali asks.

“Yeah,” Eggsy replies, still sullen.

“Well, you listen as good as your stepfather at least,” Ali says looking pointedly at Merlin who glares back. “Anyway, I’m going to bed. I’m being sent to Paris tomorrow and nothing pisses me off than flying to fucking France at arse o’clock in the morning. Good night, Eggsy.” He gives Merlin a kiss on the head and heads back into the bedroom.

“Night, Perce.” Eggsy swings his eyes back to Merlin and he can feel it coming.

“Before you ask, it’s none of your fucking business.”

“No, it’s not. And I wasn’t going to say shit but that I’m happy for you, and I think Harry would have been too.”

“Yes, he would have,” Merlin says with a sigh.

“You know why I came over here tonight instead of Jamal’s?”

“Better whiskey?”

“No, you twat. I came over because I saw a picture of you and Harry in that album I left on your desk of you and Harry. He was looking at you like you hung the moon and you were looking at him like he was the sun, and I thought maybe Merlin can tell me how to do it, yeah? How to keep it together when everything wants to tear you apart.”

“I don’t have the answer, lad. Harry and I drug each other through the proverbial trenches. The fact we got together and it was as good as it was might be nothing but luck. All I know is that I love him more than anything in this world so I did what I had to to make it work. Sometimes that meant watching Downton Abbey until my eyes bled. Sometimes it meant telling him he was a fucking arsehole and sometimes it meant me admitting _I_ was the arsehole. The one thing that helped me was therapy and I think it might help you as well. Our therapist, Viviane, is a hard-nosed bitch, God bless her, she takes no shit and will not hesitate to call you on yours. You should go see her a couple times.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Do. I only wish I would've gone sooner. Harry and I might have had more pictures to put in that album.”

—————

Eggsy is sitting on the stairs, biting his thumbnail, tapping his foot while JB gives him dirty looks every so often for waking him up with the noise.

Tilde had texted that morning to let him know to expect her at five. That was it. _Expect me around five._ Expect what? Expect her to come and get her shit? Expect her to walk in and want to talk? Expect _the talk_?

Fucking hell, Eggsy was so nervous he was about to piss himself. He will go to therapy if that will buy him a chance to make this work with Tilde. He will, swear down. He will bare his soul to her and give her the chance to explain her side of this mess. He will listen and not fly off the handle at a slight that wasn’t even there.

He hears her key in the lock and he stands, wanting to face whatever is coming on his feet. If she leaves him, he will let her go, and then go get so shitfaced that Merlin and Perce will break down the door looking for _him_ , but he really hopes that’s not what happens.

She steps in, her face drawn until she sees him. Then she smiles and it’s all the suns Eggsy has ever seen all coming out at once. She drops her luggage, walks up to him and throws her arms around his neck.

“Eggsy,” she says against the side of his neck. “I was a complete bitch. I am so sorry.”

He rubs her back while breathing in the scent of her shampoo. “Nah, babe, you weren’t. Well, okay, you were some, but I was an arsehole, too. Let’s get us a cuppa and talk, yeah? Merlin talked some sense into me and I think you deserve to know why I acted the way I did.”

“Good, yes, and I want to explain things to you. We need to discuss all about those traditions we are about to follow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will get us to the beginning of the movie and part of Poppy's attack, just in case you were wondering about the timeline. 
> 
> Let me know if I missed anything while editing.
> 
> I am [ViolyntFemme](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com) on tumblr as well


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Month Ten to the Attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting Chapters 4 and 5 together because they were too long, over around 20K, for one chapter but I wanted them to be together.

**Ten months after V-Day**

Merlin, because he doesn’t have a grave to visit or ashes to spread, tries to, at least once a month, visit somewhere that was special to him and Harry, so he can speak to the man, even if it’s in his head, or remember the good times and not the bad.

This month he makes the eight hour drive to where Harry first kissed him, in that little alley before he was Elyan and then Merlin, and before Harry was Galahad. The town is still the same sleepy little town it was almost thirty years ago when a young Harry and Ian stole a car and made the highest marks on the orientation test. He drives the streets for a while, trying to decide what street they had actually been on then. The bar Harry went into to ask directions is no longer there, but he finds the alley, nonetheless.

It’s smaller than he remembers, in the daylight instead of the night. Somehow his memories of it had turned it into some dark, cavernous place where secrets hid in the shadows, two men kissed for a mission objective and by doing so, sparked a love that Merlin thinks in his sappiest, most inebriated moments, rivals the doomed love stories of the classics he never read.

It stinks of piss, garbage, and many other things he doesn’t want to name, but he walks to the back, to the wall where Harry’s back had been as he stuck his tongue in Merlin’s mouth and shot the then Gwaine with a knockout dart.

“Sir,” a man’s voice calls from the most of the alley, and Merlin tenses, his hand going to slip in his back pocket, close to the gun that is tucked in the waist of his jeans as he turns. “You looking for something?”

Merlin turns back and touches the wall once before facing the man again. He puts on his most innocent smile, the one that Harry said made it look as if he had been lobotomized. 

“No, just reliving a memory.”

The man’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Don’t know what kind of man has memories in dark alleys.”

“A young one,” Merlin says as he walks towards him, past him, and out into the light of the overcast afternoon. “A young and stupid one.”

The man smiles. “We were all that once. Lord knows I have some memories is stranger places. I hope yours was a good one. Good afternoon.”

Merlin nods. “To you as well,” he says before going back to his car.

His next stop is the field where they woke up. Merlin so sure of himself and his knowledge that had to be superior to the floofy-haired little fuck they had saddled him with, Harry already up and planned out their way back to the manor before Merlin had even woken up.

Thanks to search through the old training files, he has the exact coordinates where they were dropped. Once he is there, he sits down on the grass and talks to Harry.

“It’s been almost a year now since I lost you. It seems unreal that I have made it this whole time, all these mornings and nights, all the in-betweens, without you by me. It was touch and go for a while, but your boy, I guess he's mine now, is a good lad. I think without him and Ali, I would have been where ever you are now instead of sitting on this damp as fuck grass talking to the air like a madman.

“Ali and I are… well, I still don’t know what we are, but we're happy, maybe moving towards something more. Sometimes I think that is a good thing, because I love the man, Harry, I truly do. But I don’t love him like I still love you. He says it’s fine that I don’t but is this anything to build a relationship on? I’m in uncharted territory here. The only people I have ever been with are you, him, and nameless fucks in club loos and back alleys. 

“Maybe I am getting ahead of myself. Maybe this thing between us will fizzle just like it did before when Alistair meets someone else. The thought didn’t bother me the first time, but now, I’ll admit, I like the idea less. What does that mean, Harry? Am I just jealous of the man’s attention because without you I still feel unmoored? Is this me grasping at what little human comfort I have left? Or am I jealous because I want him for myself? I have no experiences to draw from. You were the one who always tried to have normal human relationships. I was the one who watched you do it, tearing the inside of my cheeks apart to keep from saying anything. I was jealous then, because you were mine. You had been since that kiss in the alley." Merlin picks at the grass under his hands.

“I just visited that alley. It isn’t any prettier than when…” Merlin’s voice trails off as he hears girlish laughter floating over the grass to him. Just as he is about to stand, two young girls, women he supposes, twenty if they're a day, come up the hill he is on. They had been holding hands and were so wrapped up in each other they never saw Merlin until they were practically walking on him. They stop dead, backing up and unlacing their hands. They are a lovely couple, Merlin thinks. The blonde is pale in the most English of ways. Skin smooth and clear, like fresh snow or milk. She has flowers in her hand and one tucked behind her ear. Her girlfriend is is bald, her skin, a rich, warm brown, and while the blonde meets Merlin’s eyes with a determined look, she looks past Merlin, taking him in of course, but also scanning the area for friends of his, assessing the threat. She reminds him of Igraine.

He remains seated and lifts his hands up slowly. “I mean no harm, ladies.”

“What the fuck you out here all alone for?” Igraine the younger asks.

“Reminiscing.”

“In a field? In the damp? Are you daft?” her girlfriend asks.

“Possibly. Age tends to soften the mind.” He tries for a smile. They aren’t buying it.

“Right, well you stay right there and we will go back down this way. I wouldn’t want to have to fuck your old ass up.”

Oh, yes, he likes her just fine. Future candidate right there.

“I was up here speaking to my dead husband. Well, almost husband, he died before I proposed. This field was a place that held memories of him.”

“Wouldn’t his grave be better?” Still suspicious he sees. Good girl.

“I don’t have one. He died in America, the day before V-Day. I never got his body back.”

“Jesus,” the blonde one says, her eyes wet. She walks up to him and lays the flowers down next to him. “What was his name?”

“Harry.”

“And you are?”

“Merlin.”

“Like the fucking wizard?”

“Like the fucking wizard,” he answers smiling again.

“You’re fucking weird, mate. Coming out to talk to your dead husband in a field,” Igraine II says.

“She’s Amelda and I am Constance. She’s a bit grumpy,” Constance says, jerking her head back towards Amelda and smiling. “But I love her.”

“So am I. Us grumpy ones need the love the most. Listen,” he says, standing, dusting off the seat of his trousers, and filing away the name Amelda for consideration in a few years. She’d be easy enough to track down. He’s a fucking wizard after all. “I am going to go so you two can do whatever it is you two came out here to do. It was nice meeting you both.”

As he walks away, Constance calls out to him. “Merlin? I’ll leave flowers on the hill for Harry when we come out here.”

“Thank you, lass. He would like that, as would I.”

That night he guides Ali through a mission and goes home to his flat. He sleeps just a little better knowing that there will be flowers on a hill in the middle of no where, a tribute from two young women to two young men just on the cusp of becoming each other’s world.

—————

“Rox,” Eggsy whispers into the phone, “I need your help.”

She flies out of bed and is getting dressed before she understands what she is doing. Amelia, of the drowned candidate who works in Berlin, throws a pillow at her with a muffled _oh my god, it’s three in the morning. Tell Eggsy to piss the fuck off._

“I’m here. Where are you?”

“Is that fucking Amelia?” Eggsy asks, still whispering. “Rox, you tart. How long has this been going on?”

“Is this really relevant?” she asks, whispering back because she doesn’t want another pillow thrown at her. “Where are you?”

“I’m hiding.”

“From what?”

“Tilde.”

“Tilde?” she practically yells.

“I swear to god, Roxanne, if you do not take yourself, your phone, and that Jeremy Scott wearing nightmare out of this fucking bedroom I will burn your Louboutin collection.”

“She’s feisty.”

Roxy walks out of her room and downstairs to the garden. “Why the fuck are you calling me at this time of the night while you are hiding from Tilde? For fuck’s sake, Eggsy.”

“I think I might have fucked up.”

“Give me the news, not the weather. Go say you’re sorry and then eat her out. Trust me, she’ll forgive anything. Unless of course you don’t know your way around a clit. You do know how to get a woman off, right? It takes a more delicate touch than a couple of tugs on a hard cock.”

“I fucking… you think I can’t… I’ll fucking have you know I make her scream.”

“Doesn’t mean she isn’t faking. Men have fragile egos.”

“I fucking can’t believe… No, we was watching some Swedish indie flick. I’m trying to learn the language before I meet her parents, and I said that a bloke in it was fucking ugly and had the personality of a wet paper sack. Turns out the he's her cousin or some shit. Anyway they’re related and I’m in the dog house. She’s been stomping about and swearing in Swedish for the past hour, and I am scared because I think I heard the word for murder. Although it could have been fish. I ain’t the best student.”

“Eggsy, you did well in our language classes during the trials. I can’t believe you can’t learn from her.”

“Yeah, but Merlin didn’t have a set of tits on him like Til has. I swear I am listening and then I look at her tits, and then I think about kissing her and putting my hands on those tits, and it all goes down hill from there.”

“You’re a pig.”

“I’m a man in my twenties who is dating the most gorgeous woman in the world. I can’t be blamed. Anyway, what do I do? Maybe I should come stay with you until she cools off.”

“Absolutely not. I have company.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard. You know you’re going to have to tell me all about it. In fact, I’m a little hurt you haven’t already. Supposed to be your best mate, I am.”

“It’s new. I didn’t want to jinx it.”

“Can’t be too new if she’s already sleeping over, yeah?”

“Says the man who fucked his current girlfriend in the arse within thirty minutes of meeting her.”

“Post-mission adrenaline, love.”

“Right, I want to get back to my bed, so go do what I told you to. Do it well and all will be forgiven.”

“I’ll try, Rox, but if I ain’t in the morning, send someone round. She might have murdered me.”

“Or filleted you.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Eggsy says as he hangs up.

Eggsy is there the next morning, and throughout the meeting she sees him rubbing his jaw. She smiles at him and he winks back.

Apology accepted.

—————

**Eleven months after V-Day**

“Eggsy, are you sure about this? Once we make the announcement, you will not be anonymous anymore,” Tilde asked, her nails tapping on the dining room table.

“Til, you said it yourself. A lot of things have to happen before we make any announcement. I have to meet your parents, they have to approve of me, I have to meet a bunch of other people, so on and so forth. And I ain’t meeting your parent till next month, yeah? Let’s worry about it then.”

“I just worry about what it will mean for you being a Kingsman if you are higher profile.”

“If your parents like me, I’ll discuss it with Arthur and Merlin. “'Sides I ain’t going to be the only high profile Kingsman. Some Prince or something was a Kingsman back in the early 1900’s. He got a long just fine.”

“YouTube and social media didn’t exist, Eggsy. Your face will be one every screen across the country within moments.”

“Worry about it then, love. Now, if we could continue?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” She thrusts forward, dragging her pink, silicone cock right across his prostate.

“Fucking hell, love. I don’t even know how you are this fucking, _shit_ , good with that thing when you can’t feel…. _Oh, fuck…_ right there love, please,” he begs.

“Like so?” she asks, doing a slow grind against him, her fingers catching his hair and pulling his head off the table.

“Yes, babe, yes.”

He feels the vibrator in the toy switch on, which makes his eyes roll back in his head and Tilde shudder behind him. “Yes, I believe that is just what we needed. Now, Eggsy, come before I do, or you may have to wait.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Would you like to bet on that?” she asks, her hips slapping against his with more force.

He reaches down, pulling at himself. He doesn’t need much stimulation, not with how that fucking cock is buzzing inside him, and not with hearing the sounds Til is making above him, little breathy growls as she gets closer to her own orgasm. She is a right kinky bird and Eggsy loves it. He loves her. Maybe when she gets back he can get her bent over the table with his cock in her arse, just for old times sake, his thinks, and thinks about that tight heat surrounding him, sucking him in while she just fucking sobs for it.

He comes before she does, his own wail drowning out hers. He’s be embarrassed by that if he could think straight.

He calls a cab for Til later that afternoon. She has to go back to Sweden for some fancy Princess thing and this time Eggsy doesn’t get mad about being left behind. He gets her into the cab, a Kingsman cab, complete with an armed driver and bulletproof doors, kisses her and wishes her luck.

Later that night he has some of Harry’s old vinyl playing while he is cleaning when hits him. It’s been almost a year since Harry died. He sits down on the couch, his eyes stinging. He wishes more than he has ever wished for anything, other than his dad to show up one day and say it was all a mistake, that he could speak to Harry. That Harry could see the man, the Kingsman, he has become. He would love Til to meet him because those two would get along like a house on fire. 

He takes his phone out of his pocket and pulls up the photo of Harry and Merlin. His eyes sting and his heart aches.

“God, Harry, do you know how much you’re missed? How much we all would give for a chance to see you again? Did you know how much you were loved, are loved, when you died? Cause you were, mate. You fucking still are.”

—————

Merlin, who has also been fucked over the dining room table, multiple times, although Eggsy doesn’t know that, is currently running through the piles of internet chatter that Kingsman scoops up to peruse later. Usually he has one of the techs do it, but he also doesn’t believe in asking your people do to a job you are not willing to do so he makes sure he takes at least one shift a month.

Fifteen hours, and a botched mission of Gwaine's, later he stumbles into his rooms at the manor. He takes the hottest shower he can stand, which Ali swears is scalding and Merlin swears Ali is just too delicate, to which Ali replies _I’ll show you delicate_ … and well, it usually progresses from there. After the shower he brushes his teeth, looking at the new lines in his already craggy face, when his eyes light on the ring around his neck.

It’s been almost a full year since he lost Harry. It seems inconceivable that he is still standing. He had expected, or hoped, during those first months, that he would kill himself with alcohol poisoning or a slip down the stairs. Viviane says that it’s good he’s past that. He says _yes it is_ and doesn’t tell her there are still days when he is not.

He declines company when Ali calls to mention stopping by, and Ali being the friend he is, doesn’t get mad or hurt, or anything. He’s been here. He knows there are nights that you need to be alone with the memories and a bottle. Ali still has them himself and Merlin never gets his pants in a twist over it either. How he has been lucky enough to be blessed with the people he has over the past thirty years amazes him. If it is God paying him back for the terrible childhood he had, he would go back and take every beating again. He’d take more. And be grateful for them.

On his way out of the loo he grabs Harry’s robe that he keeps here and wraps it around him. Some nights it’s a knife through his heart. Tonight it is a comfort.

He pours himself a drink, pulls out the picture album that Eggsy had left on his desk, and flips through it. He cries, of course he does, but now he can laugh at the memories too. He slips a finger through the ring on the chain around his neck. He hasn’t taken it off since the day he put it on, and the note he found with it is in his drawer in his flat. He never plans on taking it off either. He would only take it off to put it on Harry’s finger and he can’t imagine that happening. Even though he does. He imagines it often. He presses the ring to his lips while he looks down at the same picture that Eggsy is looking at as well, tracing Harry’s smile with a finger tip.

—————

Across the pond, Harry, the object of so much love and sadness, sleeps in the early morning hours, with a small smile on his face. Earlier that evening, before Harry had showered and changed from one set of great sweat pants to another set of gray sweatpants, Ginger had come in the room, grinning like she had won the lottery.

There was a team of lepidopterists that would love to have him to tag along. Harry thinks that a large grant allowing a month long study of butterflies in Canada had a lot to do with it, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Or a gift Champ. He will leave in a month.

—————

On the other side of the glass Ginger and Tequila watch Harry sleep.

“I don’t know what you did, Ginge, but whoever he was before he got here is gone. I just hope you made the right decision.”

“I am not discussing his choices with you Tequila, other than to say it was _his_ decision. I did nothing without his consent.”

“Consent can’t be given when the person doesn’t fully understand the choice, even I know that.”

She turns to Tequila, leaning into his space. “And what should I have done? Allowed his mind to tear him apart? Before he began treatment, the violent outbursts were slowing down, but they weren’t stopping. How long could we, should we, have kept him locked up? How long before hurt one of us, or himself? I think the choice he made was the only viable one. It’s been a year. No one is coming for him. I’ve kept an ear out around town. No one has even made inquiries. It’s time he got on with his life.”

—————

**2015 - _Almost_ one year after V-day**

Eggsy lies in bed, Tilde curled up against him, his hand dragging through her hair, and his head swirling from the one — five — drinks he had at Brandon’s birthday along with the high he had from smoking two joints out of his own stash because while Liam seemed like a nice enough bloke, that bag of what he called weed was an ounce of pure skank and stems if it was anything. Eggsy wasn’t smoking that shit, not when he had the proper stuff and he had a lot of it. So he rolled two joints and left the rest there.

He is bothered. He is bothered because there is something that is niggling at his brain, something he forgot and it’s something fucking important but he cannot figure out what the hell it is and it might drive him fucking mental. Or he might be high and can’t find his bollocks with both hands. But Tilde can, so he isn’t too worried. Not like they are going anywhere. The image of a pair of bollocks walking about on their own is making him giggle, but he has to do it quietly because Tilde was higher than he was and she needs to sleep and if he wakes her up she is going to…

“Shut up, Eggsy,” she murmurs, barely awake and slaps him, open palmed right on his goddamn nipple. The same one she had been trying to pull off with her fucking teeth earlier because a high Tilde is a fucking horny Tilde and if anyone thinks Eggsy is turning that down they are fucking nuts _._ He rubs at his chest and she turns over and hugs her pillow like a plushie and goes right back to snoring. Swear down, if anyone every wants to kidnap her, do it at night because a marching band couldn’t wake this one up. He could have drove a cab through the room just like he did earlier and…

_Fuck_. _What in the bloody fuck was he thinking about?_

Oh yeah, whatever the fuck it is that he forgot about. Something with Charlie. And what the fuck was that about? That fucking wanker coming back from the dead like some posh zombie. Something about the run in with him. He left the fucker on the street, bloody as fuck, and then blew his mates to fucking Kingdom come. All in a day's work. He only feels bad that Pete died because he was a mate and always took Eggsy where he wanted to go and told Eggsy stories about his grandkids, who were a lovely bunch of kids, scabby kneed and snotty like kids should be and not these little mini-me’s of their parents that he sees in the shop looking like those kids in that movie he saw once, _Village of the Damned_ , or what it _Children of the Corn_? He Who Walks Behind the Rows only with these kids it was My Parents Dropped a Thousand Quid on These Clothes. And now he’s giggling again, shaking the whole bed, and Tilde is going to brain him any second.

Fucking fuck, this is some good weed. He cannot wait to get Rox a hit of this shit.

Right. Thinking. Important things about things that are important that he forgot because he’s too fucking high and goddamn it Eggsy, get your shit together.

He doesn’t however, get his shit together. He doesn’t remember the important thing he forgot. What he does do is pass out because while the drink and drugs didn’t keep him from fucking Tilde into the mattress, they do keep him from staying awake much longer. By the time he wakes up the next morning, tired and hung over, he is rushing through the house and has forgotten that he was worried about forgetting anything.

He blames it on the exhaustion and the drink and the hangover that he gets all weepy over the fact that Tilde broadsides him with the memory of Eggsy and Harry’s only breakfast together. If you could call soup breakfast, but Harry was posh, and at the time what the hell did Eggsy know about what posh people did. They could eat soup just as easily as they could eat Weetabix, he supposed.

Harry would be chuffed over Tilde. He would love her to pieces and would take the most perverse pleasure in schooling Eggsy on all the proper palace protocol until Eggsy thought about begging Merlin for a mission in Antartica.

_“Eggsy, when meeting the King and Queen, one should not utter the words_ ‘Fuck me.’ _”_

_“Eggsy, do not sit with your legs open. You’re among royalty, not offering the Queen a view of your cock.”_

_“Eggsy, do not invite the guards round the pub for a pint. Just nip downstairs and get piss drunk after the household has gone to sleep.”_

Harry would drive him right round the fucking garden and Eggsy would give anything if he would just show up and do that very thing.

But he isn’t going to because it’s been almost a year and even though he, and by extension, Merlin has kept this house as a shrine, the lazy fuck still hasn’t crawled out of his grave in Kentucky to come annoy the fuck out of them both.

Bastard.

After he shows up flashy as fuck in his sick ride, walks in all swag to sit down next to his mate Arthur, and yells “FOOKING SPECTACULAR” at Merlin in a terrible mockery of what Merlin’s accent actually is while Merlin looks as nonplussed as he always does, he suddenly remembers trying to remember something he forgot.

Charlie’s fucking arm.

That he left in the cab because he was too busy swimming about like a pig in literal shit so he could get home to Tilde and his mates.

As Merlin turns, still nonplussed, Eggsy jumps up, nods at Rox and Arthur, and goes after him.

“Merlin, hold on. Christ. How is it you can leave only a minute before I do and be halfway back to the manor before I am even out of my chair? Fucking Daddy Long Legs.”

“Please never utter the word _Daddy_ at me again. No matter the connotation. What can I help you with?”

“Charlie’s arm. Is it still in the cab? I forgot to get it out of there before I used your ‘exit.’”

“I retrieved it myself. I completely forgot there was a door that lead there from the manor basement. Must be old age, forgetting a perfectly good exit like that. Could have saved you a swim.”

“You’re a fucking arsehole,” Eggsy says.

“So they tell me. I didn’t really expect you to jump in the sewer. I was going to tell you about the door right before you jumped, but as ever, you’re just too quick.”

“Fuck off. Can I have a look at it?”

“At what?”

“The arm, Merlin, the fucking arm. Jesus.”

“You could, but I took it home.”

“Why in the hell did you do that?”

“Because I’m between knitting projects,” Merlin says, looking at Eggsy like he’s daft. “I took it home because I wanted to. Any tool we have here, I have at home, and I’m… trying to keep busy right now.” He shrugs. “So I took it home. It’s not like it’s going to strangle me in my sleep.”

“You knit?”

Merlin raises his eyes to the ceiling. “God grant me strength,” he says before looking at Eggsy again. “I was being sarcastic. How much pot did you smoke the other night?”

Eggsy narrows his eyes. “How’d you know I was smoking?”

“Do you really think I let you walk around with the goddamn Crown Princess of Sweden on your arm and not keep an eye out? Christ, she’s not getting killed on _my_ watch.”

“She’s with me.”

“And my premise stands. Anyway, as fun as this conversation is, some of us actually have to work. If you want to see the arm, come by the flat tonight.”

“Can’t, meeting the parents tonight.”

“Oh my, this is serious. Harry would have kittens.”

“Yeah, already thought about he would follow me all over the goddamn shop lecturing me until I was begging for you to send me to Antartica.”

“He’d just go too.”

“Yeah, he would,” Eggsy says, studying the wallpaper over Merlin’s left shoulder.

Merlin clears his throat. “Come by tomorrow night if you want to look at it. It’s an amazing study in robotic prosthetics. I am already thinking of how to copy it for agent’s that lose a limb in the field.”

Eggsy squeezes Merlin’s arm. “I’ll bring some takeaway,” he says before walking away.

“Oh, and Eggsy?” Merlin says and Eggsy looks back over his shoulder at him. “Try not to embarrass England tonight.”

Eggsy gives him two fingers in reply.

—————

Eggsy gets up from the table abruptly. His chair crashes to the floor behind him. The King is spluttering at him, his face red, saying something that cannot be complimentary while the Queen looks at him like he just shit a golden egg in the middle of the table.

“Eggsy? What are you…” Tilde asks before he runs out of the room.

He doesn’t know where the fuck he is going in this fucking place. It’s all golden halls and fucking pictures of people Eggsy doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know and more than likely after this, won’t get the chance to know because he ain’t getting an invite back here.

But who the fuck cares because his mate and JB just got…

Just got…

He can’t fucking breathe. He reaches up, ripping the bow tie form his neck and yanking open the collar of his shirt. Buttons fall to the floor. Tilde calls for him, her shoes clicking against the floor as she runs. He wants to respond to let her know where he is but all he can do is make a strangled, wheezing sound. Black spots are dancing around his eyes. He is going to pass out.

Merlin, he has to tell Merlin what happened. All of his things. All of Harry things. Brandon. _JB_. Oh my god. Everything is just _gone._

He can’t… fucking…

A sharp pain on his cheek brings him back. Tilde crouches down in front of him, waving her hand around like it hurts, and he thinks it must fucking hurt with what his cheek feels like and all.

“Fuck, Til, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. What the fuck you hit me for?”

“I slapped you because you blacked out. What kind of person do you take me for? What happened back there?”

“A fucking…”

“Eggsy,” she says, sitting down on the floor in her beautiful black dress, and taking his hands, “look at me.”

He does.

“Breathe with me,” she says, taking one of his hands and placing against her chest so he can feel her inhale and exhale. He matches it. It’s hard, but he does. “Now tell me.”

“A missile took out the house with Brandon and JB in it. It’s gone. _They_ 're gone. Jesus, fuck.”

Tilde goes white and the hand holding his shakes.

“We’ll go now.”

“No. No, you are going to stay right fucking here, Til. I need to know you're safe right now. I'm going back to London. I'm going to gather the entire fucking table and we are going to find who did this. And then that person is going to die. But for me to able to do this, I need to know you're safe, alright?”

“I don’t…”

“Babe, please. Fucking _please_ , let me know that one person in my life right now is safe.”

She nods, still pale. “I’ll tell my parents something. I don’t know what, but something. Go, and let me know what is happening as soon as you can.”

He stands, helping her up off the floor and pulling her to him. He breathes in the scent of her perfume, memorizes the feel of her bare skin under his hands, and then kisses her slow and deep.

“I love you. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. I promise. You stay here. Do whatever you have to do to get your parents to get more guards around the palace. They didn’t blow up my house because I’m a tailor and if they know about me, they might know about you.”

“I will. I love you, too. Please be careful.”

He kisses her once more and runs to the plane.

Once he is on and the pilot has them in the air, he taps at his glasses. There is no signal on any channel. No one answers. Not Merlin, not Avalon, not Rox, Perce, fucking Gwaine, Kay. He even tries that douchey fuck Accolon. Nothing. 

Is everyone gone? Is he all that’s left? He swears right now if he is, he will find who ever the fuck did this and put a fucking bullet in them, starting at their fucking toes and working his way up. They won’t die until they are begging for it. And then they still won’t.

Eggsy paces inside the cabin. He wants a drink. He knows if he starts he won’t stop until he is black out drunk. So he paces and paces.

“Agent Galahad?” the pilot says over the intercom.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know where to land.”

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t where to land?” His anxiety, rage, and grief is making him act like a dick. “Same place you took off from, the manor’s airstrip.”

“I can’t see it. I can’t see the manor.”

Eggsy raises the shades on the window. The pilot is is right. There is nothing there. No lights from the manor, no airstrip, nothing. He makes out the vague impression a deep hole, so large he can’t wrap his head around it. He looks away before he is sick.

Rox was in there. She was in her rooms because she hasn’t bought her own flat yet. She’s too fucking picky he is always telling her. Just fucking pick one and stop living in the manor like it’s a boarding school for wayward agents. She was in there. And all the support staff, and the techs in Avalon, researchers in Glastonbury, Igraine, and Merlin. He tries to remember if Merlin said he was going home tonight. He said Eggsy could stop by so he had planned to, but just because Merlin planned to doesn’t mean he did.

His legs give out.

“Sir? What should I do?”

How the fuck should Eggsy fucking know? They are the only ones left of the entire fucking Agency. He feels a hysterical giggle escape him. Wow, guess he’s Arthur.

The shop, he remembers. Arthur was at the shop so he wasn’t in the manor. He’ll know what do to. He has to because Eggsy could sure use someone telling him what the fuck to do right about now.

“Do we still have blanket permission to land in Heathrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take us there.”

—————

Eggsy takes a cab to Stanhope Mews but can’t get to it because of the cops and emergency services. He doesn’t need to get close. He can see the crater where Harry’s house was. The crater where Brandon and JB are. Dead. Should have been him with JB. Should have been him laying in the bottom of that crater.

He still can't get in touch with anyone.

He is holding on to one last shred of hope. Hope that the shop will still be there. Arthur will be there, Merlin too, because there was a table meeting tonight that Eggsy begged off of so he could go to dinner will Til. Arthur and Merlin will be there and they will have already rallied the fucking troops with a plan. Rox will be there too.

He hopes. He hopes until he smells it, the smell of damp charred wood as soon as they turn up Savile Row, and that hope curls up, sobs once, and then dies a screaming death in his chest.

He stands there in the rain, the Rainmaker he took from the plane held over his head, staring at the shop as people crowd around to see the destruction. Police try to talk to him. He might answer back. He not sure. Eggsy almost lays some fucking arsehole out flat when they joke about a _fire sale_. He’d end up killing the person without realizing it and he wants to save his rage for the fuckers that deserve it. He stands there as the last person walks away, as the last blue light passes over his face. Police tape flutters in the wind and at this distance the smell of burning wood, and maybe, if he is being horrifically fanciful, the scent of cooked meat, is cloying. It goes down his lungs and festers there. He looks at the devastation and wonders whose body lays under the rubble.

_“I never met a tailor before, but I know you ain’t one.”_

_“I see a young man with potential…”_

_“Ah! Galahad. You’re late…”_

He stands there.

And then from the right of the shop that is now just a rubble filled alleyway there is movement. Long legs, broad shoulders with a no nonsense walk. At first relief, bone deep, molecule deep relief hits him. Merlin. He is alive and Eggsy is not alone. But then… his mind is flying, a million questions in the time it takes him to draw his weapon.

His hand is steady as he trains the gun on the only piece of Kingsman he has left.

—————

Merlin is at home, alone, tinkering with Charlie’s fascinating arm, in his element. Alistair is at his flat tonight, attending the Table meeting there, saying he didn’t want to play second fiddle to a mechanical arm before kissing Merlin and pinching his arse.

So Merlin was indulging in a little Merlin time. John Denver plays in the background. He has a lovely bottle of scotch half finished and just the teeniest buzz. A fucking fantastic dinner of Cullen Skink simmers on the stove. Harry would gag if he was here. He loathed Cullen Skink and would refuse to kiss Merlin until he had brushed his teeth.So Merlin would make sure he would kiss Harry as much as possible after eating it. Of course, he always made it a point to kiss Harry as much as possible. That man was, hands down, the best kisser Merlin had ever had the pleasure to kiss. His toes curl just thinking about it.

He has been painstakingly taking the arm apart, making copious notes in one of the million moleskines Harry had kept around the house. Merlin has all the ones Harry had used over the years in a box under the bed. He loves reading them.

_“May 2010 - Ian was in a mood today before I left the manor. Took exception to the fact that I rubbed his head for luck this morning before I left. Honestly, it’s rude to have a bald head if you don’t want people rubbing it.”_

_“August 1996 - Mission was a complete clusterfuck. Kay, as usual, couldn’t find his arse with both hands and succeeded in not only get captured but actually helped the terrorists out by pointing out that they could flood the tunnels they had dug underneath the compound while I and Percival where in the fucking things. Had Arthur not been monitoring the mission I would have left the bumbling piece of foreskin there to rot.”_

_“July 2013 - Don’t forget to tell Ian that the jumper he wore today made me want to crawl under his desk and shove his cock into my mouth. Scratch that._ Show _Ian that by actually crawling under the desk and shoving his cock in my mouth. Why waste time on unnecessary discussion when one can simply act?”_

Most of the notebooks he uses of Harry’s are half full of such things because Harry being Harry could never remember the same notebook for more than a few weeks so there were piles, half empty, all over the house when he packed. He should tell Eggsy there may be more and to pass them along if he finds them.

He hums under his breath as he maneuvers his screwdriver in between two of the metal ligaments when every device in the house blares. He is at his computer and logged on in seconds only to watch in horror as missile warnings blare from every agents house, the manor, and the shop.

Once again he sits helplessly as he watches the people he loves die in front of him.

His computer screen goes blank. Black. No connection. He taps his glasses. Silence.

John Denver sings. His dinner bubbles on the stove. The arm sits where he left it. Nothing has changed and _everything_ has changed. His life, what little he had cobbled together after losing the one thing it had revolved around disappeared the instant those missiles hit.

He cannot grasp the enormity of loss that was just visited upon him. Everyone is _gone_. He is all that is left and in the yawning maw of grief that grips him he knows that he will follow them. He stands. His legs do not shake. They hold him up and take him into the bedroom where he has one of Harry’s Tokarev TT-30’s in the nightstand. It’s loaded, it will be quick. Hopefully quick enough that he can catch up with everyone else that just disintegrated into the night air like fairy dust.

They will wait for him. They will see he is coming. Surely, if no one else is at his side right now, Ali is here with him waiting. And Harry will be on the other side. Perhaps even Angus and Mr. Pickle will be there, especially now that the missile released Mr. Pickle from that purgatory he was in sitting over the downstairs toilet like a shitty Cerberus. Literally, just without the extra heads.

Fucking Christ. The house. His and Harry’s house is gone. All those memories, all of Harry’s fucking shit, is gone. Just like Harry. Just like he will be in moments. He must be quick because he can feel a sob moving up through his chest and if he starts he will never find the strength to do this again. He must be quick before they leave him behind. And he can’t be left behind, not any more.

Harry, Ali, Igraine, Roxanne, Eggsy. He thinks on each of them once, calling to them before placing the gun in his mouth.

His finger wraps around the trigger.

And then he remembers.

Eggsy was in Sweden.

Eggsy is still alive.

—————

Merlin approaches the shop from the back, avoiding as much of the crowd as possible. His heart feels as empty as the crater in front of him. His home _s_ have all been taken from him. The shop, the manor, and while he wasn’t currently living in it, his and Harry’s home, are nothing but rubble. It was in these places that he became Ian, Elyan, Merlin, and almost, Mr. Hart. He learned to accept himself, to love himself, and, in turn, to allow other people to love him as well.

His family has been taken from him. Ali, his lover turned friend turned lover once more. They were on their way to something. He still wasn’t sure what that was going to be, but it hadn’t felt like it had come stamped with an expiration date. No, it had actually felt like it was growing instead of fading, becoming something new, something neither of them expected but both wanted. Now, Ali’s flat probably looks like this as well. A black hole in the ground and somewhere in it lies Ali’s broken and twisted body.

He thought about going to Ali’s flat to see it. To say good bye, something he never got to do with Harry. Visit the place where he died and make his peace with it. And what a stupid fucking expression that is. As if you can make your peace, any peace with someone you love being taken from you. There is no peace. There is acceptance. Moving on. But making peace with the fact that Ali is gone, or Harry, or Roxanne? Not fucking likely. He won’t be making peace with losing any of them.

So, no, Merlin doesn’t go to Ali’s flat to look at the wreckage. To make his fucking peace. Because the gun is in the bag at his side, along with Charlie’s arm, his spare clipboard, his papers, and a few other odds and ends that he has hooked to some servers that no one knows about but him. Because the gun is in his bag and there is still a small chance he will use it.

He always thought that Harry dying was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. It was, it is, but it is now just the open grave to bury the rest of this pain in, and bury it he must for now. The crowd has dispersed and he can see one man in an orange tux standing on the other side of hell.

He steps forward.

—————

Merlin ushers Eggsy into the hotel suite he has procured for them. He places the bag he has with him in his room while Eggsy calls Reggie, the pilot, and asks him to bring Eggsy his own luggage tomorrow after they know they are safe. After they know if they are still alive. Just because the first round of death missed them both it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a second round coming right for them. If they can keep it focused on them and no one else, that would be for the best.

Merlin knows he should sit down and go through the list of who was at the manor and who might have been in their own homes. All the agents and Arthur are dead. Support staff, not important as he told Eggsy, have a chance of being alive if they weren’t at work. He needs to call them, let them know what happened, assure them Kingsman will take care of them, but he can’t. It’s too reminiscent of V-Day. He had to go to through the roster then as well. See who lost their heads, and who in the signal, lost their minds, and who was fucking left.

He’s not sure how long he stands there staring at his clipboard and his phone, rolling over the massive fucking to do list in his head crushes him under its weight. Long enough for Eggsy to bring him some tea and shove a plate of food at him.

“I called for room service. You need to eat,” Eggsy says, the caretaker as usual, “you look awful.”

Merlin almost laughs at him because Eggsy looks fucking awful too. He’s taken off the orange jacket, hanging it to get the damp out, his hair is completely fucked from his hands and his eyes are red.

“Have you looked in the mirror, lad?”

“Yeah, well I ain’t the one going in to shock right now, am I?”

“I am not going in to shock.”

“Mate, you haven’t moved a muscle in an hour.”

“It’s not every day someone you count as a close friend pulls a gun on you and accuses you of killing everyone you know.”

Eggsy runs his hands through his hair which does it zero favors. “You would have done the same.”

Merlin knows he wouldn’t because Eggsy would never have it in him to do something like this. Eggsy could kill people, hurt them, of course, he was an agent. But to take out the innocent? To kill over a hundred to take out single targets? Never. Eggsy, at his core, is a good, moral man. Merlin, while he has his morals, is a lot more gray than anything.

He says none of that though. All he says is, “yes, I probably would have,” so that Eggsy will not feel any guilt over what he almost did over the remains of Kingsman.

“Merlin,” Eggsy says startling him. “You’ve been sitting there for fifteen minutes. I’ve called your name twice. You’re fucking scaring me, bruv.”

“I’m sorry.” Merlin shakes his head, trying to get his thoughts together but they just keep slipping out of his grasp. Maybe his is going into shock.

“Right. How about this, what do we need to do?”

Merlin’s eyes spark. The grief and rage coming together and forming a black ball of emotion where his heart used to be. “Hunt down every fucker that had a hand in this and kill them slowly.”

“I am completely on board for that, yeah? That’s not what I am talking about though. What can we do? Right now, what can we do, what do we need to do? We are the last of Kingsman and we have responsibilities.”

Merlin nods. Eggsy is right. “Whoever is still alive needs to know what happened. Arrangements made for those that aren’t.”

“Alright. How do we do that? What is the first step?”

He can do this. He can do the first step and the first step is going through the list of employees. It takes hours, and two more calls to room service, but at the end they know who survived. Fifteen people. Fifteen support staff who were not at the manor, in the shop, or traveling in the bullet train when everything collapsed and took them to their death. They are fifteen people from the cleaning crew, Avalon, and Glastonbury. Eggsy calls them while Merlin calls Kingsman solicitors to give them direction regarding their people and rebuilding. He and Eggsy will need something to come home to. _If_ they come home.

They will set funds up for the families of the dead along with funeral arrangements. The living will get their paychecks for the next year with one lump sum being deposited at the end. They are given the names of Kingsman approved counselors, therapists, doctors. Kingsman will pay all medical bills. The missiles didn’t kill the money after all.

Tomorrow they will enact the Doomsday protocol.

—————

Turns out God really hates Eggsy because the Doomsday protocol? The one Merlin was confident would point him and Eggsy in the right direction turned out to be a fucking bottle of alcohol. The only thing it gave him was a crying, and then singing, Merlin and the suggestion they go to Kentucky. Fucking Kentucky where Harry died. Like Merlin needs to deal with that on top of everything else going on. Like _Eggsy_ needs to deal with that.

Fine, they’ll go to Kentucky, and when Merlin sobers up, he’ll figure out what to do. He’ll point, Eggsy will shoot, and they will burn everything that whatever fucker killed their friends ever loved while he watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know if you see something I missed. Thank you again to Xogoi_Momo for doing just that. And thanks to everyone for reading :)
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kentucky and all that comes with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in the previous chapter, I am posting both Chapters 4 and 5 at the same time so if you haven't read Chapter 4 yet, go back one chapter.

Eggsy slides into the co-pilot seat after they had been in the air for an hour. Merlin checks that the plane is taking care of herself and pours them both a drink, handing Eggsy’s to him.

“Drinking and flying, guv, ain’t that against the law?”

“Eggsy, most of what we do is against the law. Shall we split hairs now?”

Eggsy shrugs and sips his drink.

“The Princess is doing well?”

“Tilde, Merlin, call her Tilde.”

“Tilde is well?”

“Yes, she’s great. A little pissed about being stuck in the palace, but since there isn’t anywhere in London… Fuck, Merlin, I should have never moved into that house. All that stuff of you and Harry’s…” Eggsy clears his throat before taking a longer drink. Merlin tips some more into his glass.

“It still would have been gone.”

“Thought who ever did this didn’t give a fuck about support staff?”

“True enough, but our system still listed that house as Galahad’s, even before you moved in. I never got around to removing the designation, so it would have been gone, with me in it, and had you been in another place, we might have all been lost.”

“Fucking hell.”

“Indeed.”

“What the fuck are we going to do?” he asks and for the first time since he has known Eggsy the swagger that had carried him through training, through V-Day, and through everything since is gone. Eggsy looks every bit as young as he is, younger even, and he is looking at Merlin like he is sure he knows what to do. Like Merlin has a plan.

Merlin does not have a fucking plan.

Actually, no, he does. His plan is to go to Kentucky and find the people that made that whiskey they drank and hope _they_ have a plan because Merlin is fresh out.

Fresh out of plans, fresh out of energy, and fresh out of fucks. Merlin is tired. He wants to find whatever piece of cursed ground holds Harry, crawl in next to him, maggots, stench, and all, and rest. If it was just him, he might, but Eggsy is here looking at him like Merlin knows how to fix this mess they’re in. Merlin just doesn’t have the heart to tell him that they are in uncharted waters from here on out. No handlers, no Arthur, no Kingsman backup. They have the clothes they brought with them, what weapons are in the plane, and what little power he had to send to the glasses through his backup servers. Which meant the glasses could relay information to the person wearing them but could not replay information between them.

They were almost fucked. Not quite completely, utterly fucked, but pretty close to it.

“I have a plan, lad.”

“Thank god. Let’s hear it then,” Eggsy says, his voice eager.

“I think it’s best to get to Kentucky first. See what our new friends have to offer us.”

“Right. Okay. But we got a plan. Thank fucking god, Merlin, because I haven’t the first clue of what to do.”

That makes two of them.

—————

They land in Kentucky. The false papers the plane has on it secure them permission to land and to keep the plane there. Eggsy rents a car and offers to drive which suits Merlin just fine. He’s not sure he can drive on the wrong side of the road without killing someone. At least not with as much whiskey he has had to drink.

While Eggsy drives Merlin looks up anything he can find on Statesman. Turns out their new friends have quite the liquor business on their hands, and from the aerial photos of the distillery and the various offices they have around the world, it is much more profitable than tailoring. _Although not as respectable_ , he can almost hear Harry sniffing, his nose upturned, which Merlin would find hilarious considering the sheer amount of alcohol Harry could put away on a normal day.

He laughs to himself.

“Share with the class?” Eggsy says next to him.

“It’s nothing important.” He taps on his clipboard and continues, “it looks as if the next town will be the closest to Statesman. They run a distillery there and from it’s size, I would assume it is also home base for them.”

“Why the fuck can’t we run a distillery instead of being tailors like some posh arseholes.”

Harry just rolled over in his grave. Twice.

“Because Eggsy, we are posh arseholes, or we were. Now Kingsman consists of some kid from the estates and a bloody-knuckled orphan from Scotland. How the mighty fallen.”

Eggsy’s laugh contains no mirth. “Yeah. Sorry you got stuck with me for all this, Merlin. Percival, or even Rox, would have been a better choice.”

“That’s not what I meant. While I would give anything to have Ali or Roxanne alive and with us, I do not for one minute regret that you are here.”

Eggsy sniffles while Merlin pretends not to notice. “Same here, Merlin, but that’s because Perce probably would have shot me the minute I even pulled that gun on him. Rox would have just disarmed me and then beat me with it.”

“She is more fond of brute force than Ali is.” _Was_ , Merlin thinks, _was._ Past tense. As in they are the past tense. No longer present. “Anyway, we will stop and get rooms there. Tomorrow we will pay a visit to our friends.”

They are silent after that. Then, because he likes to torture himself, he looks up where they are in relation to the South Glade Mission Church. It surprises him to see that it is just outside of the town they are staying in for near future, a thirty minute drive at most. Interesting.

Once they are in the hotel -- and Eggsy has bitched about the food, done a sweep of both their rooms which Merlin did not care to do because who in the hell even fucking knows they are here, and heads to his to call Tilde and do things Merlin does not care to know about -- he pockets the car keys he had nicked off the table when Eggsy wasn’t looking.

It takes some getting used to, driving arse fucking backwards, or driving period. Merlin rarely had the occasion to do it unless he was testing a new vehicle prototype by whipping through the obstacle course at break neck speeds. If he and Harry went anywhere by car, Harry drove and Merlin gave him road head.

He stops at a gas station. A place called Love’s that looks like a shopping mall and has a disembodied voice letting Customer No. 43 know that his shower is ready. It’s all very 1984. Double Plus Good. It gives Merlin hives. He buys a can, some petrol, and hightails out of there as quick as he can.

He parks down the road from the church and walks the last half mile to it. The last thing he needs is Mrs. Crabtree remembering hearing a car outside her window and a handsome Scot mucking about in the dark.

The South Glade Mission Church is laughably underwhelming now that he is standing in front of it. In his head, even though he saw it inside and out through Harry’s glasses that day, it had become this overly large, looming phantasm that reflected the violence and hate that lived, and died, inside. In reality it was a small white, wooden church with a green tin roof and what were, Merlin is sure, pretty stained glass windows before it fell to shit.

Green mold covers the once white wood shingles so that with its roof, it seems to be fading into the trees that surround it, a feeling furthered by the fact that the landscaping and the surrounding shrubs are overgrown and unkempt, branches snaking in through broken windows and around the entrance of the church itself.

It’s barely dusk, but the few houses within throwing distance of the church are dark as well, although Merlin knows that in this area, dark and desolate does not mean they are empty. He doesn’t concern himself with it though, his dark clothes and the lack of light around him will make him invisible to the casual observer.

Reaching up, he taps his glasses once to turn on enhanced vision for low light. He walks until he is a few feet away from the door, stops, and looks down at the ground in front of him. This is the spot where Harry had died, his body either already dead when he hit the ground, or where he lay bleeding out. Either way, this is it. He thinks he can see a very faint stain on the asphalt. The glasses could tell him definitively, they can detect the most minuscule trace amounts of various fluids and chemicals, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it.

He sets down the can he is carrying and lies on the ground, centering his head on the discoloration he won’t confirm. This is the closest he has been to Harry since the morning of the dog test. He wonders what went through Harry’s mind in those last moments, either on his feet or on his back in the spot that Merlin is occupying. He had been speaking to Harry when the gun went off so Merlin hopes that at least one thought was spared for him. He hopes that in his last moments on this wretched planet he will see his Harry, whole and happy, arms outstretched.

Tears slip from the corners of his eyes, over his temples and the smooth skin of his head to fall onto the ground below. It’s perversely comforting that his tears are mixing with the blood and brain that have seeped into the asphalt from Harry, that their DNA is mixing together, allowing even the smallest pieces of them to be together again in this world. As he lies there, he allows memories to drift in and out of his mind. Their first kiss, their kiss in the hangar, the way Harry said his name when he came, they way he said Harry’s. He reaches out with his heart searching for some sense that Harry is here, perhaps tied to this place where he met his end, far away from the ones that love him. Trapped here perhaps, just waiting for Merlin to come and save him. There is nothing though and Merlin is glad. He couldn’t bear it to think of this place binding Harry’s soul to it.

He gets up, moving into a crouching position, pressing his lips to his fingers before pressing those fingers to the ground. “Eggsy avenged you, you should know. Those that killed you are dead. He saw to that, and I watched over him the same way I watched over you, and him at least, I could bring home. You would have been proud of him, preening like you were the one that birthed him. Tonight is my piece. It certainly won’t be as dramatic as killing Valentine with his dead lover’s prosthetic leg, but it will give me some closure, which I need.

“It’s been a year, Harry, and I still ache for you like it was just moments ago that I last touched you. Time is supposed to heal, or at least begin to, but it hasn’t.” He pushes his whole palm into the ground like he can reach back in time and physically pull Harry to him before the bullet finds him. “I gave Eggsy the fucking house, not that it matters now, because living there was killing me, literally. While dying was appealing because it meant I would be with you I have… _Jesus_ , had, because Eggsy and I are…” Merlin clears his throat. “We are all that is left. He is all _I_ have left for fuck's sake. Everyone else I give a fuck about is dead and I can’t bury any of you. _Fuck.”_ Merlin realizes he is close to hyperventilating and he wrestles himself back under control.

“Who knows though, Harry, maybe since Kingsman is no more, and Eggsy has Tilde, maybe it’s time I can rest. Maybe I’ll be seeing you sooner than I thought. But for now this will have to do.”

With one last loving stroke to the ground, he stands, picking up the jug and walks to the front door of the church. He pulls the boards off the door and picks the padlock holding it shut. It’s pitch black inside except for the few spots the moonlight filters through the windows, broken and not. He turns the night vision up on his glasses bringing the interior to life. The glasses pick up the stains that might have faded with time but still exist, soaked into the wood, a part of the soul, however dark it is, of the church. The pews sit toppled together from Harry pushing them. The cross still lies across one door, blocking exit or entry, and the floor is littered with hymnals or other books. It’s as if someone came in and just removed the bodies, leaving everything else to rot.

Seems being the scene of a massacre discourages a new congregation from taking over.

Suits Merlin to a T.

He makes his way through the room, splashing petrol as he goes. This, as much as the goodbye outside, is his eulogy to Harry. Once he has made as much of a full circuit as he can he lights his lighter, which is _not_ a grenade, and uses it to light the path he laid. As he leaves a _s_ heat crawls up behind him.

If the asphalt outside was Harry’s grave, then the church is his funeral pyre. Valentine is dead, as is Gazelle and Arthur, and now the land that holds Harry’s blood and Merlin’s tears is cleansed.

He hopes that this frees Harry’s spirit. He hopes that it frees his _._

“Wait for me, Harry,” he says as he watches the sparks rise up into the sky. “You always waited for me, so wait just one more time.”

From Harry’s spot he watches the church burn, and then, at the first sound of sirens, he silently slips back into the night.

—————

Eggsy looks a little worse for wear Merlin thinks as he watches the boy shovel terrible hotel food into his mouth. He doesn’t look like he slept last night and looks older than he did a week ago, but loss does that to you. It ages you in moments. Merlin should know, he’s been staring at it on his face for a year.

“Rough night?” he asks when it looks as if Eggsy is coming up for air.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing, guv,” he says before placing more waffle in his mouth. Merlin feels sick just looking at the two empty plates already sitting in front of him whereas Merlin’s small saucer still contains a half eaten muffin barely made serviceable by what they call tea in this festering shithole. Fucking America. He is positive there isn’t one thing in the entire country he will grow to love.

“Oh,” Merlin says, “Why’s that? Did you hear me moaning in my sleep? I know you aren’t really old enough yet, lad, but when a man is an adult and alone sometimes…”

“Someone who has to take pills to keep it up…”

“I assure you I don’t.”

“… should not be lecturing me on,” Eggsy makes a quick motion with his hand. “No, I didn’t hear a thing last night from your room. Even when I came and knocked. Even when I opened the door with my watch. Didn’t hear nothing because you weren’t in the room, were you?”

“I went for a drive.”

Eggsy sits back and crosses his arms.

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells. I know you had the car because I went and looked for it when I realized someone nicked the keys, but if you’re telling me you went joy riding, I’m telling you that’s bullshit.”

“I…”

_“A local church has burned to the ground. South Glade Mission Church, home of a local congregation that massacred each other on 'V-Day,' caught fire late last night. By the time the fire department arrived the building was beyond saving. Police believe it was arson and are offering…”_

Eggsy gapes at him. “You fucking didn’t.”

“I did and it felt fucking wonderful. You got to take down Valentine and Gazelle and I could do this. I _needed_ to do this.”

“I ain’t questioning it, bruv, I ain’t. I just wish I could have helped, but I understand why you went alone.”

“Thank you.”

Eggsy waves his gratitude away while eyeing the breakfast offerings again.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I’m a growing boy.”

“Growing right out of your trousers. Come on, let’s go see what Statesmen have to say.”

—————

Apparently their new friends like to talk with their fists and a butt of a gun, Merlin thinks as he sits tied to a chair, his bollocks soaked with some shit whiskey, Eggsy next to him. It is embarrassing how easily that jumped up Tom Mix wannabe took him down with one hit. Merlin blames it on spending his night committing arson instead of sleeping like a man of his age should be doing. Not that he has ever given one royal shit about his age, but times like this he feels it a little more acutely than normal.

And then?

Then the white wall in front of them turns into a window.

Then the man he has mourned for a year, who he has loved for his entire life, who is his entire life, is standing on the other side shaving as if it was just simply another Monday morning. As if Merlin wasn’t four feet away. As if Merlin hasn’t gone hot cold joyous enraged ecstatic confused all at once.

He wonders if he needed to pay the price of Ali’s life to get Harry back and he knows for one singular, blinding second that if it is than he will pay it. He will pay for Harry’s life with Ali, and Roxanne, and Eggsy, and every single life in London if that was what it cost. Later he will think no he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t pay for anyone’s life with someone else’s but his own.

But that also isn’t entirely true.

But that is later.

Now all he can do is stare, cataloging every minute difference there is between this Harry and his Harry. The way Harry is holding himself seems off, softer somehow, as if he has lost that properly mannered stick that he kept up his arse. His face seems different too, as if the real Harry stepped off to the side and this was his softer underbelly showing. The eye patch of course, is jarring, but Merlin could give a fuck. Harry could lose both legs and he wouldn’t care. He could be nothing but a head in a jar and Merlin would be overjoyed to have that after living for a year in a world where he thought Harry wasn’t.

A year. A year Merlin has mourned, has put himself, and everyone around him through hell. A year and this fucking bastard has been sitting here the whole time. Harry is going to get a right telling off right after Merlin holds him for the next three months.

Eggsy murmurs and _Fuck me_ next to him and all Merlin can say is…

“Harry?”

There is a gun pointing at Harry _again_ while he is stuck in a chair helpless. It makes him realize that this is real. Tom Mix is pointing a gun at Harry and Merlin knows that this fucking denim bedecked hillbilly is going to find out that Merlin doesn’t go down with one hit this time.

A woman appears holding an old umbrella and tries to dry them off with towels that do nothing for his fucking cold ass bollocks. When the little fucking come rag cuts them loose it takes every ounce of control he has to not knock the little fuck straight on his arse, and continue knocking him until his face was nothing but a smear of blood on these shiny white floors.

But first Harry.

Always Harry first.

—————

Merlin lets Eggsy go into the room before him because he doesn’t trust himself not to fall to his knees and bury his face in Harry’s stomach while he sobs in relief. Eggsy rushes in with all the excitement of youth, and most likely, the excitement of something good finally happening after the shit show of the past few days. 

“Hello,” Harry says greeting Eggsy with less enthusiasm the Merlin would have expected.

“Hello, mate,” Eggsy says, going for a hug.

Merlin feels a pang of jealousy that his arms won’t be the first around Harry.

“Get off,” Harry says, lashing out as Eggsy falls back in surprise.

Merlins steps forward, his heart pounding in his chest. His Harry would have noticed him, noticed his jumping pulse, the minute he got within touching distance. His Harry, after a year apart, would have already had him flat on his back on the floor with his tongue in Merlin’s mouth. Hell, Harry did that after just days apart.

But this Harry shows no recognition when he meets Merlin’s eyes. Merlin could be some fucking bloke in an aisle in Tesco for all Harry seems to care that he’s standing there.

He reaches his hand out and he locks his knees to keep them from buckling at the first touch of Harry’s hand in his.

“Harry,” he says, his voice rough.

“How do you do?”

 _How do you do?_ Who the fuck is this man? Merlin wonders if Harry is unsure of his safety, and theirs, and this is an act that he has had to keep up for the past year, or however long these bastards have had him, but no, even with the Oxfords and Brogues comment, Harry insists he is a lepidopterist.

Merlin, because he can’t stand not touching Harry once more before he leaves to find out exactly what the fuck is going on, he gently wraps one of his hands around Harry’s arm under the pretense of having Harry follow his finger.

“It’s good to see you,” he says. _I love you, you mad, beautiful bastard. Please just look at me,_ see me _. I am right in front of you. It’s me, it’s Ian._ “We’ll be back soon.” _I’ll blow this entire place to the seventh circle of hell if that is what it takes to get you back._

—————

Hours later, Merlin stands in front of the two-way mirror watching Harry. He is sitting on the floor, painstakingly drawing and labeling another butterfly diagram, humming under his breath. Merlin can barely stand to be here, looking at this, but he cannot be anywhere else. He tried to sleep. He kept waking up, panicked and disoriented in the room they provided him, wondering where the fuck he was, and then falling apart as every single thing that had happened clanged in his mind like a gong. He had to see Harry, even the Harry he seems to be now, to know that all of this was real.

The good and the terrible.

He has half a mind to go in there and grab Harry by the shoulders. Shake him until the real Harry rattles out on to the floor. This Harry that he has never met before. He’s soft, and young, and holds none of the jagged edges that fit like puzzle pieces into Merlin’s own. No, he would cut this Harry to shreds if he gets too close, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to. Merlin looks for any trace of man he loves, any gesture, anything to give him hope that somewhere in there his Harry is there just waiting for Merlin to bring him forward.

He lays a hand against the glass and from where he stands it looks like he is caressing Harry’s cheek. Christ, Harry is four feet away from him and Merlin _wants_. He wants so much. His fingertips ache with the need to feel Harry’s skin under them. Every addict knows you’re only as clean as your next hit and there isn’t anything clean about Merlin.

He could go in there under the guise of a friend visiting, he supposes. This Harry is still well-mannered and Merlin doubts he would kick him out. He won’t though, go in there to satisfy his own selfish needs because not only did he see confusion in Harry’s eye, he saw just a touch of fear as well, and Merlin never wants to see fear on Harry’s face when he looks at him.

He sighs. He spent a year begging to have Harry back. He should have been more specific.

Even though this Harry is not his Harry, Merlin will take him, anyway. He will reintroduce himself, he will build up that trust, that love again. He will learn about butterflies. He’ll draw books upon books of them for Harry to color instead of schematics for pocket square gas masks and umbrellas that can kill.

Merlin won't pressure Harry for a relationship either. No, he is well versed in being in love with Harry but never touching him. He will be what Harry wants and needs him to be because he just wants to be in Harry's life. To be near him, to make him laugh, to hold him when he is upset because he has to be in his life in some way. Knowing Harry was dead was one thing, but knowing Harry is out in the world where Merlin cannot see him, since he is no longer Galahad, existing where Merlin cannot protect the soft man he has become… well, Merlin couldn't fucking bear it.

And, if one day Harry decides he would like Merlin to touch him, Merlin will oblige him by eating him out until he cries before he fucks him so good, for so long, that Harry will spend the next week wondering why he waited.

Inside the room Harry puts his marker down and slips his fingers under his eye patch, rubbing at the eye socket as if it pains him. Merlin had read his chart earlier. The eye is gone but thanks to Statesmen, Harry is not, and while he still feels the need to take his emotional turmoil out on some unlucky fucking bastard, he will do his best to not do it to any of them.

At least not on their grounds. Let him meet _Tequila_ out somewhere and he will not be held accountable for his actions.

The door opens and Ginger comes in, jumping a little when she notices that he is there.

“Merlin. I didn’t expect anyone to be here. I was coming in to make sure that today didn’t get our Harry riled up.”

His hand curls into a fist over the glass. “He’s not your Harry,” he says, quiet and dangerous, only she doesn’t know him well enough to know how dangerous it is. Eggsy, training under Merlin and then working with him, would have already dragged her out of the room, but unfortunately for her, he isn’t here.

“Excuse me?”

Merlin barely keeps himself from slamming his fist into the glass. Instead, he turns to her, forcing his hands behind his back, his rage down his throat, and repeats himself.

“I said, he is not _your_ Harry.”

She has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “No,” she says, looking through the glass at Harry who is now putting his markers away, “I guess he’s not. Is there anything left of the Harry you knew?”

“No.”

“I’ll, ah, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Wait. I would like to know why you kept him like this, in a padded room, dressed in invalid’s clothes and given him crayons to play with. Did he ask for this? Has he asked to leave?”

She hugs her clipboard to her chest and her eyes flick back to Harry’s room before settling on Merlin.

“Why don’t I get us some coffee and then we can talk?”

“Whiskey.”

“I didn’t know you met him.”

“Met who? Oh, of course, you have an Agent Whiskey. No, I was saying I would prefer whiskey. I’m sure you have some around here somewhere.”

“Right. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He turns back to watch Harry as she leaves. Harry is standing at the sink, brushing his teeth and getting toothpaste all over the fucking place as usual. Of course, out of all the things this Harry had to have of Merlin’s Harry was the fact that he was, at the oddest times, a complete slob. But even with the flecks of toothpaste hitting the mirror Merlin watches Harry. He looks into that lovely brown eye, his eyes follow the strong jaw, which has softened over the past year, and thinks that the old Harry would hate the haircut he is currently sporting. Merlin isn’t fond of it either. It all but destroys those curls that would fight their way out of the three jars of pomade Harry used every morning to tame them. He misses those curls.

By the time Ginger comes back the lights are off in the room and Harry is sleeping on his back, his arms crossed over his chest. Merlin can just make out the rise and fall of Harry’s chest as he breathes. He presses his forehead to the class and tries to make his own breathing match Harry’s. It was something he would do on nights after a bad mission when he wasn’t sure if he Harry would come back. Harry came back though, he always did, until he didn’t. On those nights when his brain wouldn’t stop playing _What If?_ even though Harry was in his arms, he would stay awake, his fingers in those curls, and match his breathing to Harry’s until he fell asleep.

Ginger, when she comes in, is good enough to not mention finding Merlin, both hands and forehead, pressed against the glass as if he was trying to walk through it.

“I figured it would be best to bring the bottle,” she says, “and I brought Harry’s file, in case you wanted to read it more in depth.”

“Thank you,” he says, sitting down at the lab bench she has commandeered as a table. He pours himself a measure of whiskey and waits while she fixes her coffee.

“When Harry first woke up, he wasn’t like this, meaning that he was not the gentle man you see right now. He was sometimes, but others…”

“Yes?”

“Other times he was, well, he was one of us. He was dangerous, violent. He came after me and he put Agent Whiskey in medical with a broken nose.”

“So he remembered who he is, or was, at those times?” Merlin asked, trying to keep himself from hoping that there was enough of his Harry left to save.

“No, he never remembered anything, not even the episodes themselves once they were over. The first time he woke up, he was fully in what I thought of as his agent persona. He was cold, lethal, and had he been able to get to me, I know he would have killed me. Then when he woke up again, he could give us his name, but he believed he was eighteen. Since then the Harry you see know has been the dominant personality and the times where the agent…”

“Galahad.”

She blinks at him.

“His name was Galahad. You have Whiskey and Tequila. We have Galahad and…” he clears his throat, “excuse me, and Percival. Or we had. Now we have Galahad, which is Eggsy, and me, Merlin.”

“I was wondering if that was your name but I didn’t want to be rude.”

“It’s the only name I answer to. Everyone who called me by my given name is dead,” he looks into his glass as he swirls the liquid around, before tipping his head at the darker room to his left, “or can’t remember it.”

“The times where Galahad would show himself usually only coincided when he was under stress or he felt attacked.”

“And why would he have felt attacked?” Merlin asks, meeting her eyes while she did everything but meet his.

“When he first woke up, he was, well I assume he was frightened and disoriented, and later on he had an altercation with Whiskey.”

“I see. What was this altercation about?” His voice is modulated and calm. It does not fool Ginger.

“I am sure you would have to ask Harry, although he says he doesn’t remember most of it, or Whiskey.”

“I would love to. Where is he?”

“In New York.”

“Lucky him.”

She mutters something that sounds like _you’re telling me_ and drinks her coffee.

“When is the last time you saw Galahad come out?”

“Months ago. He has been completely this persona for quite some time.”

“Is there any way to reverse the memory loss?”

“This is a common occurrence when we use the Alpha Gel on a head wound. I’m not quite sure how or why it happens, but everyone always regresses back to an earlier time in their lives. We could always bring them back though.” She takes another drink and straightens her back. "Can I be frank with you, Merlin?"

“I would hope you be.”

“What if Galahad, or Harry, _wants_ to be this person he is now? What if he doesn’t want to go back to his life before V-Day?”

“The Harry I knew loved being an agent. He excelled at it.”

“Maybe he didn’t love it as much as you thought. Were you two close? Have you known him long enough to make that kind of observation?”

Merlin considers telling her exactly what they were to each other, even opening his mouth to do so, but decides at the last minute not to. If Harry never regains his memories, it will be bad enough to see the pity in Eggsy’s eyes, he doesn’t need to see it in other’s as well.

“We started Kingsman at the same time, in our mid-twenties. He won the Galahad title and I became a handler, and then, Merlin. At this point I can say that I have known him for more of my life than I have not known him, and I am very confident in my ability to say that _my_ Harry would not be happy as he is now. So I ask again, is there a way to bring him back?”

“There is, although we have never tried it this long after application the Alpha Gel and recovery. It won’t be easy, for him or you, but before we start maybe you should ask yourself something.”

“What’s that?”

“If you are bringing him back for his happiness, or your own.”

—————

Eggsy puts his glasses back on and pockets Tequila’s pair as he leaves Champ. If he is going to be leaving in a few hours he wants to check in with Merlin and, although he doesn’t know Eggsy, see Harry again.

He knocks on Merlin’s door, adjusting his cuffs as he waits, wouldn’t do to look sloppy around here. Kingsman may only be two now, but they do have a reputation to uphold.

Merlin opens the door. He smells of day old liquor, his skin is pale, and his eyes are red. He’s still wearing the clothes he was wearing yesterday. Or at least Eggsy thinks he is. Merlin may have twenty green jumpers. Eggsy hasn’t seen him look like this since he pulled Merlin out of his house and in to medical. Eggsy’s already frazzled nerves go on high alert.

Merlin doesn’t even say anything when he opens the door. He just leaves it open behind him as he walks back into the room.

Fucking hell, Eggsy could use a joint.

“You alright, bruv?” Eggsy asks because he can see Merlin is not.

“Fine.”

“Right.”

Eggsy goes into the little kitchenette that is off the room proper and goes about making Merlin some tea while watching Merlin sit down on the bed and stare at the floor. Once the tea is passable as it’s going to get he places it in Merlin’s hands and pulls a chair up in front of him.

“Alright, talk.”

“I don’t feel like talking.”

“Don’t much care if you do. I’m leaving in a few hours to go chase down Charlie’s girlfriend and I ain’t leaving you here like this with no one around to watch you, so you are going to talk so I know how worried I should be while I’m gone.”

Merlin sets the tea down without drinking it.

“Just running off without speaking to me first?” Merlin asks.

“No,” Eggsy says, drawing out the word. “This is me, speaking to you. Why the fuck do you think I came here? Or do you think I enjoy your pissy pants parties?”

“I used to call Harry Princess Pissy Pants when he was in a mood. I don’t think I have ever had it said to me though.”

“Well, that’s because Harry was… _is_ , fucking hell, is a Princess whereas you are more like a grumpy fucking wizard who only comes down from his tower when he needs new plebs to experiment on.”

“Hmm, an apt description.” Merlin digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“Nope, you first.”

“I loathe you.”

“You don’t. If you did I really would’ve been the gimp without the parachute.”

“A decision I regret every day.” Merlin picks the tea back up, takes a drink, and then looks into the cup. “What the fuck is this.”

“Tea. I know it’s shit, but until you Amazon some over here, this is what we got.”

“I’ll make an order today. Christ, did Harry have to drink this shit for a year? He’ll lose what’s left of his fucking mind when I get us some decent tea.”

“Still waiting.”

“You’re worse than Mr. Pickle when he got his teeth into something. I spent the night watching Harry sleep and drinking. Happy?”

“Not particularly,” Eggsy replies, crossing his arms. “Go on.”

“I spoke to Ginger while I was there. She said that when Harry first woke up, he would have violent episodes where it seemed like he remembered what he was although not who he was.”

“That’s good, yeah? That means something is still left in there for us to pull out.”

“She also said he hasn’t had one in months now, that the lepidopterist we met yesterday seems to be the most dominant, I guess personality would be the right word, now. She also said that they have pulled people back from this regression or whatever it is.”

“Aces, Merlin, we can get him back, see? Nothing to worry about. Soon we'll sip fucking real tea with the real Harry and we can rebuild Kingsman.”

“She asked me why I was so adamant on bringing him back. Whether I was doing it for him or me.”

“What the fuck is that about? Why _wouldn’t_ we be? It’s fucking Harry. It’s _your_ fucking Harry.”

“I didn’t mention that and I would thank you not to mention it to anyone either. I don’t need the pity. I had my fill of it when Harry died. She had a point though.” Merlin holds up a hand when Eggsy opens his mouth. “No, listen. Harry is happy like this, you saw that. I saw that. He is happy. A different happiness than what I ever saw in him, but still, it’s there. What if she was right? What if Harry’s mind picked not only a younger version of himself, but one that to my knowledge, never even existed, because he couldn’t handle what he had done both as an agent and as a victim of that fucking signal? What if this is what he wants?

“I want him back, god fucking knows I do. I have spent the last year almost killing myself because I couldn’t stand to be without him, and now to have him back but different, and with no clue of who I am to him is almost worse than him being dead. I keep asking myself how much I love him.”

“I wouldn’t think that would even be a question.”

“No, maybe that is the wrong question. How _do_ I love him, then? Do I love him selfishly? Do I bring him back to a life he ran from because I can’t live without him? Or do I leave him to a life he will most likely be happy in but would mean him living without me? I now know I can live without him. It isn’t much of an existence, but I made it with you, and with Ali. But can I live knowing he is out there and I can’t be with him if he decides he doesn’t want me? I don’t think I can, Eggsy.

“So I ask myself the very question Ginger asked me, am I bringing Harry back, if we can, for him or me?”

“Jesus,” Eggsy says, getting up and pacing, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I ain’t scared to admit that I want Harry back, _our_ Harry, no matter what the cost. But I don’t get a say in this, bruv. He was my mentor, and I know we would've been close had this shit not happened. Fuck, I already thought of him as some sort of, I don’t know, father figure or whatever the fuck, but this is your decision.”

“I know. I know it is and I hate it. I have never been good at doing what was best for others, and when you add Harry in to the mix, whatever generosity I might have goes right out the fucking window.” Merlin downs the tea, grimacing as he does so. “Now what’s this about you prancing off into the sunset with a Statesman?”

“Charlie’s ex-girlfriend is going to be at Glastonbury. Me and Agent Whiskey are going to see if we can rattle a few names out of her.”

“Agent Whiskey,” Merlin says, his voice that cold tempered steel that once told Eggsy he could whisper it in his ear, “will he be coming back here to get you?”

Eggsy looks at him, trying to figure out why Merlin would give a fuck about that of all things. “No, he’s sending his jet to get me.”

“I see. I would appreciate it if you let me know when you both get back.”

“Right. And why’s that?”

“I’ve heard so much about him, I would like to meet him.”

“You’ve heard so much about him in the less than twenty-four hours we have been here.”

“Yes.”

“And you want to meet him.”

“Very much so.”

“You’re taking the piss.”

“Not a drop. I’m being completely honest.”

“Fine, don’t tell me what the fuck is going on in that shiny head of yours. Keep me updated on Harry.”

“I will.”

“And Merlin? I support you in whatever decision you make about Harry, yeah?”

Merlin nods once before Eggsy heads out the door and to his own room to pack.

—————

Merlin rinses out the mug after Eggsy leaves. He also throws away all the tea that is in the cupboards for good measure. He will order something that is tolerable later or develop his taste for coffee while he is here.

Merlin sits down at the table with his clipboard, not because he can really do much on it with it’s only information coming from his own servers, but because its presence is comforting and anchoring while he in in a place, physically and mentally, that makes little sense. Ali is dead. Harry is alive. Kingsman is gone. Statesman exists. Merlin is now also Arthur. Merlin has one agent. He is a handler. He is not handling said one agent.

This is why he drinks.

Speaking of.

As he doodles on his clipboard and drinks the literal glass of whiskey, not two fingers, not a measure, but a glass, he thinks over the decision facing him.

Ginger is right to a point. Harry the Lepidopterist is unguarded in his happiness and his interests. By the time Merlin had met Harry, he had already been all but disowned by his family and had been through four years in the military. He learned to hide his feelings and those years with Merlin, while Merlin strung him along like a fucking arsehole, taught Harry to bury them even deeper. Not that Harry was stingy with his affections, or never showed them, he was just a little jaded by the Galahad trials, and even more so by the time Merlin had finally gotten his act together.

Harry now, mentally, is the eighteen-year-old that never lost his parents because they disapproved of who he loved, never had the person he loved continuously drive a knife into his soft parts again and again. Part of Merlin wants to give Harry this, a new lease on life so to speak, a chance at being the person that was dead before he even had time to live, but Merlin also knows that by doing so he runs the very real risk that Harry will tell this gruff, unyielding Scot where he can bugger off to.

On the other hand, Merlin cannot think of one time Harry had ever expressed dissatisfaction towards being an agent. If anything, he seemed to revel in it. The intrigue, the dashing about and being different people, the violence. Granted, the violence was always for a good cause, but a person had to have some sort of affinity for hurting people to be the agent Harry was even in his early fifties.

If Harry had made comments about wishing he would have chased his love of butterflies instead of his love for the kickback of a good gun, then Merlin would find this easier. But he hadn’t. Never once, in all the years they have known each other had Harry seemed anything but happy with his life as it was.

He knows that wasn’t the point of Ginger’s question, and he knows that she knows that there is more to Harry and Merlin than meets the eye. A friend wouldn’t sit all night watching someone sleep.

He wishes he could talk to Ali. He had known Harry, if not as well as Merlin, close to it, and Ali had a way of putting even the hardest decisions in to perspective. That and Merlin could use a fucking hug.

But the question remains, who is this for? And even more so, should he even try?

—————

Ginger flips through her tablet, showing Merlin Harry’s various scans and MRI’s. “We developed our Alpha Gel technology for our own agents in the event of a head shot.The gel protects the brain. Then, in the lab, we use nanites, micro-bots, to repair tissue damage. There are side effects. Partial amnesia, regression to the younger self. With no idea who he was, there was nothing we could do. But now you guys are here there's a good chance we can bring him back.”

She sees the guarded hope in his face, the way he looks to Harry, sitting on the bed flipping through one of his various books, and then back down to the tablet, the scans she has showing the damage in a concrete way that the paper file she gave him last night couldn’t.

“We've dealt with this kind of amnesia before. Harry's like a computer that needs to be rebooted. We need to recreate a shock or trauma from his past to trigger his memory.”

“I hope you’re right,” Merlin says as he starts the water flowing in to Harry’s room.

So does she.

—————

She wasn’t right, Merlin thinks as he tries to drink away the sight of Harry drowning in front of him.

 _No, no, wait,_ she said, _his instincts are going to kick in._

As if Merlin could wait. As if he would let Harry die in front of him _again_ when Merlin could stop it. Seeing Harry’s panic, watching his body jerk with oxygen loss and death, and Merlin was supposed to wait for Harry’s instincts to kick in.

For fuck’s sake.

Having his Harry back isn’t worth causing this Harry to die. _Nothing_ is worth Harry dying.

 _I want to go home. I want my butterfly collection. I want to see Mother,_ Harry had said, dripping wet, fear still written on every line of his body, the unsaid being spoken so eloquently. _You tried to drown me just to bring me back. I don’t want to come back._

And what the fuck is Merlin supposed to say to that? _Harry, so sorry old chap, but your home, our home, which housed a truly frightening amount of dead butterflies both in frames and more moldering in the basement, is nothing but rubble. Your mother, who you hated and who hated you, died two years ago and when you found out you spent the night thinking of increasingly obscene toasts while I kept an eye on you so you wouldn’t give yourself alcohol poisoning. One of my personal favorites was:_ To Mother, whose cunt was so frigid she had to wear heated knickers. _Not ringing a bell? Let’s try drowning you again. We’ll let you thrash about a little longer this time._

Shitting Christ.

Eggsy called a few minutes ago to see how it went and Merlin gave him the watered - har-de-ha-ha - version. _No change. Looking into other options._

Which was a lie.

 _There’s nothing more we can do. It’s time to let him go_ , Ginger had said.

Merlin hasn’t been able to let Harry go since Harry kissed him in that dark alley. He tried for years, tried to let Harry go so Harry could be happy with someone else, but he never quite got the way of it, letting go that is, and he doesn’t think he will be able to learn to now.

—————

“Whoever the Harry was that you knew, he’s gone I’m afraid. Goodbye.”

Harry feels sorry for this Eggy and Merlin that apparently knew him from before. Of course he does. They obviously were very close and Harry can’t imagine what it is like to see someone they thought was dead up and walking around with no idea who they were. It must be dreadful.

Honestly, though, to drown a man just because you want your friend back? If that is any indication of what type of people they are, appearances not withstanding, and by association, that Harry was, he believes he is well shut of the whole affair.

Eggy seems like a nice enough boy. That accent though. And who calls themselves Eggy? He has to wonder where he and Eggy would have met. He said that Harry was the one who gave him wings? How so? Was Harry a sponsor of some sort? Did he bring the boy into what every agency everyone keeps prattling on about. He doesn’t really know how to feel about that. If Harry’s scars and previous violence shows anything it's that this agency is not a very nice place. Why would he want to bring in a nice boy into something like that?

He finds himself thinking of the Merlin fellow however, more so than he would like. He reacted badly when Eggy tried to hug him, but was happy not only to shake Merlin’s hand but also let him touch his arm.

As he sat there sopping wet from the impromptu water nightmare, he had to force himself not to curl into Merlin, seeking warmth and comfort. He told himself it was because he had just had quite the shocking experience, but he can’t chalk the fact that he later wondered what Merlin’s tongue would taste like. Although that could be because they have stuck him in a room where a man can’t even have a wank in private and other than his and Jason’s one liaison, no one has touched him in over a year.

Merlin is a very handsome man. Tall, broad shouldered, with an air of competence and dominance that made Harry’s head spin when he walked in the room.

But again, drowning a man isn’t really the best way to start a relationship. Plus, he can’t really see someone like that enjoying an extended trip to go study butterflies. Merlin seems like a man at home in a room full of sleek computers with gadgets strewn about, all in various stages of repair or disrepair. The room would have red walls with front pages of the _Sun_ hung…

Harry can see the room, and Merlin in it, reaching out one hand to Harry as he walks in while the other continues to type at the keyboard.

 _No_. No, he will not let this happen again. He is so close to getting out of this place, to living the life _he_ wants and not what other people want him to be. He viciously tamps down the memory, if that is even what it is, and not some lonely fantasy of a lonely man.

Nothing is more important than getting out of here.

—————

Eggsy can’t believe how everything in the span of two weeks can go from fucking brilliant to shittier than the sewer he swam home in the other night.

He’s lost his friends, he royally fucked everything up with Tilde because he had to finger bang someone that let _Charli_ e put his cock in her, and now Harry is running off to chase fucking butterflies while Merlin and Eggsy stay behind.

He’d almost prefer letting Dean smack him around.

He had thought, hoped, that when he saw Harry standing there that things would finally look up. He was lucky to have Merlin with him, but to have Merlin _and_ Harry. Jesus, those two, to Eggsy, _were_ Kingsman. They would have no issue rebuilding with those two at the helm. They could find whoever blew their lives to fuck, kill them, and then go home to start fresh. Eggsy wanted to start a women’s bespoke suit line in the new shop in honor of Rox, and he knew Harry would eat that shit up.

Not this Harry though. Fucking butterflies.

Eggsy knows Harry is a little odd, he had a loo full of dead things in his home for fuck’s sake, and he was with Merlin, Eggsy thinks, laughing into his shit drink. Those two things right there made him a full on nutter in Eggsy eyes. This new Harry though, he is off the deep end. He looks like he would catch a spider in a cup and place it outside before killing it much less take out a room full of guards like Eggsy had seen him do in some old mission footage that Eggsy never watched because he was missing him. This Harry is all “How do you do’s?”, soft eyes, and hair without a single inch of pomade.

Does he not see Eggsy and recognize the memorial he had made himself into for Harry? Does he not see himself?

Apparently not since he brushed Eggsy off like so much dirt from his shoes. Eggsy ain’t going to lie, that fucking hurt. It hurt a little less when he realized Harry didn’t remember anything, but not by much.

Eggsy scrolls through his phone, torturing himself with pictures of Tilde. He should have known he’d fuck that up too, not like he deserved a woman as beautiful and fucking perfect as she was.

He should have explained to her about honeypots, let her know that they were a thing that he would have to do, but he could never find the right way to bring them up. _Sorry love, sometimes I’ll have to stick my cock places it don’t belong but I promise I will think of you_. Or _At least you don’t have to worry about me cheating, yeah? Because I get my strange through work._

Either way he looks at it, it would have been a clusterfuck. Although telling her five minutes beforehand about one might have been the worst way he could have gone about it.

He flips through more photos until he comes to his favorite of him, Til and JB. Til was right when she said the puppy couldn’t replace JB because he can’t. Nothing can replace that gassy little pug with his snuffles snores and a bark that made him sound like a five pack a day smoker. As much as he thinks Harry is a weirdo for stuffing Mr. Pickle he can sort of understand how you could…

 _Jesus,_ he thinks, _Mr. Pickle._

—————

Merlin is watching Harry sleep, again, when the lights come on in Harry’s room. Eggsy walks in holding something. Merlin looks closer and can't suppress his groan when he sees it’s another wee rat dog, but he can’t deny the smile that follows it when he sees the way Harry almost pisses himself in happiness over it.

Merlin jumps to his feet when he sees Eggsy pull out his gun. He knows Eggsy’s finger isn’t around the trigger. He knows this, but he also has a panicked pavlovian response to guns anywhere near Harry’s head. Especially this Harry.

He listens as Harry yells at Eggsy, clutching the dog to his chest, and for a moment he looks so much like his Harry that Merlin feels his eyes grow hot and wet. He can see Harry’s agitation growing and is about to step in when he hears…

“It was a blank! I would never hurt Mr. Pickle!”

… And stops. Stops in mid-stride because he might fall to his knees sobbing if he takes on more step. He can hear Harry telling Eggsy about Valentine but all Merlin can think of is that Harry is back. His Harry.

He pulls himself together and walks into the room where Harry and Eggsy just finished embracing. Christ, he is going to hug Eggsy so hard the lad might die from a cracked spine if not from surprise.

“Well, well, I suppose I should cancel that taxi.”

 _Wow, smooth. Your almost husband is finally back from the dead and lepidopterist limbo and that is the first thing you say to him?_ he thinks to himself.

“If you don’t mind, Merlin,” Harry says with that tiny smile of his.

“Welcome back…” Merlin realizes at that moment that Harry had called him Merlin. Not Ian, but Merlin, and Harry never called him Merlin unless they were at work and Merlin had just bitched at him about being professional and not an utter tosser, and even then Harry still would insist on Ian. “Galahad,” he finishes, wrong footed.

Harry remembers who _Harry_ is.

Harry doesn’t remember _Ian._

—————

“What the fuck, mate?” Eggsy asks once they have both left Harry to cuddle his new dog and rest. “Why ain’t you in there snogging the fucking life out of him?”

Eggsy, as annoying as the question is because Merlin does not want to talk about it, seems righteously pissed off that Merlin doesn’t have Harry tacked naked to a wall, as if they were two characters in a movie that he wants to see kiss.

“Because he doesn’t remember me, Eggsy.”

“Bullshit, he remembers everything, you saw him just like I did. He called you Merlin.”

“Yes, Eggsy, thank you, I heard him. That’s exactly it, he called me _Merlin_ , not Ian. Harry never called me Merlin unless he had to. If he remembered me, remembered who we were to each other, he would have either called me Ian or been climbing me like a tree.”

“Right. Didn’t need that image but thanks, anyway. Maybe he just needs something to jog his memory, yeah?” Eggsy waggles his eyes brows, and while Merlin knows the lad means well, he still wants to punch the little bastard in his face.

“This is not a joke.”

“No it ain’t, and I ain’t laughing, but if you won’t go in there and tell him, I fucking will. I watched you almost die because you lost him. And now you have him back. You have a second chance, you fucking tit, and I ain’t going to watch you throw that away, swear the fuck down.”

Eggsy turns on his heel and Merlin grabs him by the arm, pushing him against the wall. Merlin gets his face right up in Eggsy’s, their noses less than an inch away from the other’s. Eggsy doesn’t even have the decency to look scared, the little toe rag, he just looks resolute.

“You’ll do no such thing. This is my life, mine and Harry’s, and I am not going to spring a quarter of a century long history full of pain and love on a man who just fucking remembered who the hell he was. Let him have some time to get his fucking head together. I will decide when to tell him, _me_ , Eggsy. It’s not your decision to make.”

“It’s not entirely yours either.”

“You’re fucking lucky I tolerate you or I would strangle you right now. What if I go in there and throw my heart at his feet and he still doesn’t remember? What do you think that will do to me, or him? I am going to give him a few fucking days to wrap his head around the fact that he was coloring on the walls like a child for a year. I still have to go in there and tell him that Kingsman, his home, and his friends are fucking gone. Pardon me for not wanting to add my undying love into that mess.”

“Fine. Do it your way, but remember, we don’t always have as long as we think we do. Don't wait until it’s too fucking late.”

Eggsy shakes him off and walks away. On his way down the corridor he meets a man who tips his hat at him.

“Whiskey, care to join me for a drink, bruv?”

“Can’t kid. Got to talk to Champ. Maybe later.”

Merlin raises his eyes to the ceiling and thanks a God he doesn’t believe in. He is in the _perfect_ mood to find out exactly what the altercation was between this bad porno-stached hick and Harry. Just fucking perfect.

Merlin hangs around the halls while Whiskey is speaking to Champ. When he sees the man leaving their version of the Table room, he walks up and introduces himself.

“Agent Whiskey,” he says, holding out his hand, “I haven’t had the pleasure yet. I’m Merlin, from Kingsman, our version of your Ginger as it is.”

“Nice to meet you, you can call me Jack, as in Daniels.”

Merlin smiles. Anyone that knew him would see danger but _Jack_ doesn’t know him, and smiles back. “What are the odds?”

“You ain’t shitting.” He gives Merlin the once over. “Want to grab a drink?”

“Shouldn’t you be calling Eggsy for that? He invited you first after all.”

“He’s a good kid, got a lot to learn, but he’s okay. Sometimes you need a drink with someone more your level, right? Besides, Tequila got his dumb fucking ass on deep freeze because of some stupid shit, so I need a drinking buddy.” Jack winks at Merlin.

“It would be a pleasure to keep you company,” Merlin replies, _and to get you alone_.

They end up in one of the labs where Jack seems to produce two bottles of whiskey out of thin air. Merlin lets them sit and talk for a few moments. He is just about to broach the subject when the skinny fucker beats him to it.

“So what’s the story with Butter, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Butter, Butterfly Guy, Harry. He’s one of yours, right?”

“Yes, he is one of ours.”

“Hmm, doesn’t seem like much if you ask me.”

Merlin grips his glass tight enough that he thinks he can hear the crystal web. “Funny, I heard he knocked you a good one.”

Whiskey tips back in his chair, takes his hat off and flings it like a frisbee so that it lands on one of the tables on the other side of the room. He laughs. “I wouldn’t say he knocked me a good one. Lucky hit. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Hmm, yes, the unexpected can certainly do that to you,” Merlin says as he stands, kicks Jack’s chair back, and palms the blade he keeps in his pocket. Merlin follows Jack back to the floor and puts the knife to his throat.

“What the fuck is this?” Jack asks. “I am going to kick your fucking ass.”

“Put your hands behind your head.”

“Fuck you.”

“Do it or I am going to slice you open from ear to ear, give you a Glasgow smile. Your fucking choice.”

Jack puts his hands behind his head.

“Good. Now, I would love for you to tell me what the fuck you think you were doing putting your hands on Harry.”

“What the fuck do you care? Or are you fucking him too?”

Merlin keeps his face blank but his stomach drops at the word “too.” If this fucking bastard took advantage of Harry while he was not himself they will never find his body.

“I’m waiting,” Merlin says as he applies a little more pressure to the knife, just enough to begin to break the skin but not quite.

“Jesus fucking Christ. You can take the fucking knife away, man. I’ll tell you.”

“I’ll stay where I am, thank you.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Butter…” Merlin presses again, “Harry touched something he shouldn’t have.”

“What was that?”

“Can we really not talk about this like fucking men? You made me spill my fucking drink and I was enjoying it.”

“I’m going to enjoy cutting you if you don’t fucking explain yourself.”

“Fine. Harry and Jason, Tequila you know him as, got high together one night and fucked. I took exception to it because I am trying to get Jason off the fucking drugs and I’m the one fucking Jason. I figured if Harry wanted to put out so much, he could break me off a piece of that Kit Kat Bar, you know? See if I was missing something. He didn’t like that, and well, right when I was explaining my point to him, his crazy switch flipped and he took me by surprise. Can I have a fucking drink now?”

“Let me make this very clear to you. If you ever touch Harry again, or even look at him with anything else other than respect, I will pull your entrails out through your arsehole with my bare fucking hands.”

“Listen brother…”

“I am not your fucking brother. I am not your friend. I am not anything to you except a man who cares very fucking deeply for the man you touched.”

“I called it square when Harry knocked me on my arse. Fuck man, I even apologized to him. He and I don’t like each other, but I wasn’t planning on fucking with him.”

Merlin stands up, leaving Jack on the floor, rubbing at his neck. “Good, fucking see that you don’t,” he says as he walks towards the door.

“So, I’ll take that as you don’t feel like fucking?”

Merlin doesn’t even reply. He just walks to his room as fast as he can, getting in the door before his legs give way. Christ, here Merlin was mourning Harry and Harry was playing cowboy, literally, with that _boy_ who tried to light his fucking cock on fire. Merlin is angry, mad with jealousy, and resigned all at once.

Of course, he can’t be too mad can he? It’s not like he was celibate while Harry was, what? Dead? Gone? Missing? Confused? He had Ali every way he could and he is going to begrudge Harry human comfort when he didn’t know who Merlin was, and still doesn’t?

Is he going to have to step aside and watch Harry take up with Tequila? Will he come back to London with Harry?

Merlin will not be able to bear it. He won’t. He won’t try to stop Harry because Harry’s happiness has always been Merlin’s first priority, and if some little fucker who thinks that spitting tobacco with perfect aim is a skill to cultivate, then yes, Merlin will step aside, but he won’t stick around to watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first saw the movie it was just a few weeks after I posted Part 2 of this series. When Merlin walks into Harry's room after Harry remembers who he is, there is just a little pause in Merlin's voice when he says "Welcome back... Galahad." My immediate thought was _Omg, Harry doesn't remember Ian, only Merlin_ before I remembered that this was the movie and not my fic. Still though, I thought it was a perfect angle to use for Part 3. Then when Harry gave that bullshit speech about not having anything go through his head when he was shot -- because I don't care who you ship with Harry, of if you don't ship him with anyone, there is no way that Eggsy, or Merlin, or ANYONE else he knew in fifty plus years of a life lived didn't flash through Harry's mind before he died -- I swooned with the delicious angst I knew I could use both of those scenes for. 
> 
> Let me know if I missed anything!
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cambodia and the aftermath.

The next morning Merlin is up bright and early, knocking at Harry’s door.

“Enter,” Harry calls and Merlin smiles at how much he sounds like himself. No more of that squishy butterfly chaser. Harry’s voice now carries the timbre of Galahad and Merlin wants to pry its taste out of Harry’s mouth with his tongue.

He doesn’t, but he files the idea away for later consideration.

“Harry, how are we feeling today?”

“Excellent. And quite ready to get out of these,” he says, plucking at the sportswear he is wearing with a look of such Harry Hart distaste that suddenly Merlin is laughing so hard he is crying.

“I am so glad I still amuse you, Merlin.”

“Oh, not as glad as me. I worried you would be duller than normal once you came back.”

“I am not, nor was I ever, _dull_ ,” Harry sniffs.

“Really, remember a lot your early years then?”

“No, unfortunately, just bits and pieces.”

“Then believe me when I say I had to switch out handlers for you because they would fall asleep from how boring you were.” Merlin wipes tears from his eyes.

“Weren’t you my primary handler? I seem to remember you being around all the time.”

“Merlin liked to punish me.”

“I just remembered something else.”

“What’s that?”

“I loathe you,” Harry says.

But he is smiling that smile that Merlin never thought he would see again and Merlin cannot help himself. He walks up to Harry and pulls him into a hug.

He trembles as he holds Harry in his arms. He doesn’t smell the same because he doesn’t have that expensive cologne he used to wear, but he feels the same and Merlin, as he pulls away, drags his nose ever so softly across that hair.

“Merlin?” Harry asks, looking at him as they part, “are you alright?”

“Yes, Harry, it’s just been a long year. It’s not every day that your closest friend comes back from the dead.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t. Aren’t you lucky I did?”

“Aren’t I just.”

“Now, about these clothes…”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think they suit you. Maybe you and Eggsy can share a wardrobe.”

“I think not. I want my suits. We can get something sent over from the shop. I can’t do anything in this.”

“No, Harry, we can’t.” Merlin has dreaded this. “Why don’t you sit down.”

“Whatever for?”

“Just do it. I see the bullet had no positive effect on your ability to listen, for fuck’s sake.”

Harry sits on the bed and Merlin joins him because there is really no place else to sit.

“We can’t send for anything from the shop because we no longer have one.”

Harry stares at him, his mouth open. “I’m sorry. I must have misheard. The shop is gone?”

“The shop, the manor, Arthur, the agents, everything. Eggsy and I, well, and now you, are all Kingsman has left.”

“King is dead?”

“Eggsy killed him before V-Day. But the new Arthur is dead as well. And Ali, and Roxanne, and Igraine and every other single person we knew except a handful of support staff. Kingsman was wiped off the map.” Merlin digs his nails into his own palm so he can talk about this as calmly as possible, so that Harry, if he needs to, can fall apart.

Harry face is pale and he blinks rapidly. “I think you need to take me through everything that has happened over the past year from the fucking top, Merlin. Now.”

Merlin tells him. He tells him about King, the chip, Eggsy poisoning the fuckwad with his own pen, which as Merlin expected, makes Harry prouder than a mother whose child just learned to write his name with his shit, Eggsy taking out Valentine and Gazelle. He tells him about Charlie and the attack, the new Arthur, who Harry knew but only has fuzzy recollections of. He tells him of Eggsy becoming an agent and how he is the spitting image of Harry in the field, cocky and all swagger, ruthless and lethal. He tells him of the people, the friends, they have lost in a matter of moments, how everything they know, everything that is familiar is gone, leaving them more orphaned now than Merlin ever was in his childhood.

He doesn’t tell him of nights where Eggsy and Alistair pulled him out of a puddle of his own sick, of the day when he found Harry’s note tucked inside the ring that rests under his shirt, of the night he got the gun in a blackout drunk. He also doesn’t mention the ache that had settled in his chest each day when he woke up and had to remember that Harry was dead each time. He doesn’t tell him _I love you, you glorious, ridiculous man._ He doesn’t beg Harry to remember him. Remember them. He doesn’t, but Jesus fucking Christ he wants to.

When it comes to Harry he has had an entire lifetime of wanting. He’s used to it.

“My god,” Harry says, looking at his hands, “a green agent and two old men are all that is left.”

_Compartmentalize and move on_ , he thinks, and falls back on sarcasm. “Speak for yourself, you geriatric twat, I am still in the same shape I was thirty years ago.”

Harry follows his lead. There will be time enough for grief when this is done. “Funny, looks like you’ve gotten soft around the middle to me. Dare I use the word _paunchy_?”

“Shall I ask Champ if there is a sparring room we can use?”

“Certainly not, having your arse kicked by a former invalid would be quite the embarrassment.”

“In deference to your extended convalescence I’ll go easy on you and allow you to kick my arse. You could use the help, what with the missing eye and all.”

Harry laughs and grips Merlin’s shoulder. “I’m glad you made it, old friend.”

Merlin reaches up to lay his hand over Harry’s, squeezing. “Not as glad as I am you did.”

Harry has to make due with the suit he died in, a sight that makes Merlin nauseous. Statesmen had it repaired as much as possible short notice though Merlin can still see the evidence of the tear in his right shoulder where he took a knife and the faint stain of blood around it. He wants to burn the damn thing, but Harry is right, he can’t go out in what he was wearing, not to avenge Kingsman.

—————

Harry, now given an actual room instead of a padded cell — which is ironic because now he is as dangerous as they all feared him to be — stands in front of the full-length mirror looking at his reflection.

He feels… _conflicted_.

When he regained his memories of Harry Hart, Kingsman Agent, he also, unfortunately, kept his memories of Harry Hart, Lepidopterist. He wishes he hadn’t.

Harry never once regretted his decision to become a Kingsman. He wanted it from the first time his sponsor told him about it, and if that meant shooting a dog, even one as loved as Mr. Pickle, than he would do so. There was never a doubt in his mind that he would be Galahad, and so he was.

And he _loved_ it. He excelled at it. It gave him an outlet for the anger and darkness that he always had to work so hard to keep in check. Harry wasn’t an evil man, he knew this, but he wasn’t a nice one either. Nice men don’t find the sound of a bullet slipping through a man’s skull calming. They don’t find beauty in taking out a room full of armed men with nothing but a blade and their bare hands. They don’t enjoy slaughtering a church full of people.

It horrified Harry that he did it, yes, but he was even more horrified that a small part of him liked it.

Harry the Butterfly Guy, as that arsehole Jack calls him, was much more simple in his needs and wants. There wasn’t a black spot on his heart, anger in his blood, murder on his skin. There were butterflies, and new friends, and the joy of looking forward to a simple life. He could be anyone because he was, for the most part, a blank slate, and so everything seemed possible for him.

Ever since Harry had put on the suit, he simultaneously exalted in the its feel against his skin and wanting to rip it off so he could replace it with his soft cotton sweats. He had asked for it, a suit from Kingsman, though he could have done without this particular one, but he did so because it was expected of him. It was his duty, his responsibility, even more so now that it is left to he, Merlin and Eggsy to rebuild Kingsman, and Harry does his best to do what needs to be done. His own desires be damned.

But he also wants to disappear, to become a different Harry Hart. Harry the Lepidopterist hates Merlin and Eggsy a little for showing up and bringing him back because he was so close to being _free_.

Now he is locked into a cage made of bespoke, bulletproof fabric by the blood of his victims, the ghosts of the dead, and the weighty expectation of two men who are counting on him.

He knows that this time he will never escape it.

—————

Merlin doesn’t expect to see regret in Harry’s face when Eggsy hands him the Kingsman watch, one of the few extra Kingsman trappings they had in the jet.

Harry smiles although Merlin thinks it is more for Eggsy’s benefit rather than any true happiness on Harry’s part. Merlin sees the regret, and sadness, in it and the small, self-deprecating laugh he gives.

He takes off his eye-patch looking them both in the face, showing them what the bullet cost him, daring them to look away, and to Merlin’s anger, Eggsy does. He swallows and his eyes cut to the side. Merlin wants to grab him by the collar and yell, force him to look into the beautiful desolation of Harry’s eye, because by fucking God, if Harry is strong enough to show them they sure as fuck better be strong enough to look. Then everything he was about to say gets washed away when he watches Harry, glorious Galahad, attempt to teach some hicks a lesson only to end up on the floor instead.

“What's wrong with me, Merlin? I thought you fixed me?” Harry asks once they get him back in the booth and Jack takes care of the arseholes instead. Merlin still hates the bastard, but he is grateful for him taking care of the problem.

“Well, we rebuilt your neural pathways but it'll take time to get your coordination back,” Merlin says, hoping it’s true even when he knows it isn’t.

“And the phantom butterflies?”

“You will experience episodes, lapses of clarity. You'll be back to normal soon.”

Merlin can’t fix this. He can’t fix Harry. What could be repaired and healed has already done so. Harry may have to learn to live with the coordination problems that come from a bullet coring out his brain like an apple, and he might have to live with phantom butterflies for all they know, but now, after seeing this, Merlin very much doubts that Harry will ever be the Galahad so much of his pride rested on being.

Later, when he sees that Eggsy has — and when has Merlin spent so much time just wanting to slap the lad? Not since training most likely — insisted that Harry comes with he and Whiskey to check out Poppy’s lab in Italy, Merlin wants to do anything he can to keep him right here in Kentucky where no one can hurt him.

But that’s not love, that’s control, and Harry, no matter incarnation of Harry he is, would hate him for it.

Eggsy is just trying to give Harry some of his own back, show him that despite Moonshine and his horrifying brother cousins kicking his arse, Harry is still a valuable agent. And Merlin agrees, he is valuable. Too valuable to be running off to the mountains when he is still seeing phantom butterflies and only has a passing chance of hitting the broad side of one of the distilleries with a missile launcher.

—————

Merlin is in an opposite hall when Harry finds Ginger in the hall before they leave.

“How is Jason?”

“He’s in the final stages of the rash so we have cryogenically frozen him to stop the process. Hopefully, if you all are successful, we will have an antidote and can wake him up when you return.”

“Will he suffer any ill effects?”

“We don’t know, Harry, we don’t. We’ve never seen anything like this before. Ms. Adams didn’t mention any lasting side effects, but she wouldn’t when she’s using the antidote as a bargaining chip. We will just have to administer it and hope for the best.”

Harry nods. “Right, I suppose I should go get that antidote.”

“I know you two were… _close_. I promise I will keep an eye on him, make sure he stays safe for your return.”

“Yes, he and the former me were close, and were I still that man, perhaps we could have continued, but I'm spoken for.”

Merlin’s heart blooms in his chest. Literally blooms like a fucking rose and he thinks he may vomit from the sheer romanticism of that imagery, but he can think of no other way to put it.

“Remember you have a man back at home, Harry? Good for you.”

_Thank you_ , Merlin thinks, _thank you for giving me one fucking thing back._

“No, no one back home. I meant Kingsman, it rarely gives me time to think, much less keep a relationship.”

“I think perhaps you might not be giving yourself time for a relationship.”

“Never wanted one. Now, I must go, but I’ll be back with the antidote.”

“Good, he’s counting on you,” Ginger says as Harry walks away.

Harry doesn’t come down the hall Merlin is sobbing silently in, his fist pressed to his mouth to keep the screaming in and his clipboard pressed against his stomach so his insides don’t fall to the floor.

_Never wanted one._

Merlin wants to scream at him. _You wanted one, and you had one, and we were_ fucking glorious _, do you understand? We were the lovers that transcended time and space and pain and hurt and everything that the universe threw at us to be together. Actually, glorious doesn’t even begin to describe us, but it's a good start._

He says nothing. Later, before they leave, he claps Harry on the back, glares at Eggsy who at least has the sense to look a little frightened, and watches them go while he feels his throat closing up with a consuming panic. Ginger tells him she will take first watch of the agents. Merlin shakes his head at her and simply pulls up a chair, and keyboard, beside her. His agents are out there. Merlin won’t sleep till they come home.

—————

They come home. Thank god.

Eggsy and Harry come home in one piece, Whiskey comes back with a head wound and Alpha Gel. Merlin is a little put out that he wasn’t the one to pull the trigger but, he figures, you can’t have it all.

Ginger looks at Whiskey’s vitals as they scroll across the screens. “He looks great.”

No, you definitely can’t have it all. “Good,” he says, meaning the opposite, as he walks out to speak to Harry and Eggsy.

“Good news, gentlemen. He'll be back on his feet in no time.”

“I’m not certain that's a good idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“I shot Agent Whiskey, deliberately.”

“What, why?” Merlin asks, wondering if Harry still harbors ill will towards Jack. Merlin knows he harbors a whole harbor of it himself.

“He was working against us and until we find out why, I say we trust no one.”

“Merlin, Harry's sick. This whole thing is my fault. I thought he was ready.” Eggsy’s phone rings. “I’m sorry, I've got to take this.”

“Listen to me. This is not about my mental health. If there's a chance there's a double agent in our midst, or worse, if Statesman itself has a dark agenda we have to safeguard this mission. We both know the president wants these victims dead.”

“Look, Harry, I trust you. I always have, but it's about this situation. We need Statesman's resources, and I need to know that you are fit for work.” Merlin raises his finger. “Now, look left for me.”

“There's nothing wrong with my brain.” Harry says, peevish and sounding like every other time Merlin questioned his motives. At least some things haven’t changed.

“Look right. Can you remember the headline when you uncovered that spy ring in the Pentagon?” Merlin knows the story of every cover because he was with Harry for them all. That and he liked to recite the missions when he was drunk and railing at Harry’s ghost.

“The football. England beat Germany, 5-1.”

“Thatcher's assassination attempt?”

_You could thwart_ her _assassination, but not your own?_ Merlin remembers yelling. _You can save everyone but not yourself, you selfish fuck. I hate you._ But he didn’t, he never could. He will never, ever feel anything but love for this man standing in front of him.

“Charles and Di's wedding.”

Merlin allows himself one shot in the dark, one hope that he might, _might_ , remember something about him, about them. “My favorite singer?”

“I don't bloody know. How would I know that?” _Because I used to play it and sing to you while you pretended to hate it and laughed instead. Because it’s_ me.

“It's John Denver.”

“Merlin,” Eggsy interrupts, “Have you got eyes on that location yet?”

“Soon. The reconnaissance drone's about an hour away. Which gives us time to sort out…”

“Bollocks, we haven't time for anything. I'm leaving now, with or without you.”

—————

Statesman is nice enough to give them a plane since the Kingsman plane was still where they landed it at Louisville International although he doubts Champ would have been so generous if he knew Jack was lying that a med bay because Harry had shot him.

Time enough to worry about that when they get back. Right now he is more worried about them. Them being he, Harry, and Eggsy who are planning to storm the jungle hideout of a woman who is insane enough to poison her own drug supply.

What could go wrong?

Everything. Everything could go wrong because they were woefully out manned with no backup and Merlin has a bad feeling about all of this. But he has seen Harry come back from the dead and Eggsy survive a brawl with a mechanical arm, so just maybe they will get lucky and walk out of the jungle in one piece.

This will be Merlin’s first time in the field as an active participant. Merlin dealt death from above with code and drones and electrical outlets you know you disconnected right before you step into the water puddle and realize it re-connected by itself. Merlin was the gas seeping through the walls while you slept. Silent, omnipresent, and gone before you even realized you were choking.

This isn’t to say that Merlin won’t be able to hold his own. He went through the training. He trains the agents, and he kept himself in fighting shape at all times because he was damned if he was going to go soft because he killed with a click of a mouse rather than the punch of a bullet.

Still, he has to admit he has a few nervous flutters in his stomach about being out there with only his considerable brain to keep him safe. Well, that and he is hoping he can keep his mind on killing whoever comes at him and not staring at Harry as he pirouettes his way through blood and bone to get to his target.

Merlin checks the auto pilot and nav system one more time. They are about an hour away from the small airfield they saw through the drones. Time to get ready.

“… I know it’s against Kingsman rules, having a relationship,” he hears Eggsy say to Harry.

“When I was shot, can you guess what the last thing was that flashed through my mind?” Harry asks Eggsy.

Merlin slows, standing just outside the doorway. Harry may not have noticed him approaching, but he would bet his clipboard the lad did. _Yes, you damn fool, it was my voice,_ Merlin wants to say.

“It was absolutely nothing. I had no ties. No bittersweet memories.”

_I regret every moment we could have had that we didn’t because even thirty years is not enough time to have loved you, Harry Hart. It’s not enough time.I regret every moment we could have had that we didn’t because even thirty years is not enough time to have loved you, Harry Hart. It’s not enough time_ , Merlin had said in his ear as Harry walked out of The Church.

“I was leaving nothing behind.”

_God, please don’t leave me here_ , Merlin had begged.

“Never experienced companionship, never been in love, and in that moment, all I felt was loneliness and regret.”

_You are a gift beyond measure. I love you, Harry. I love you so fucking much._

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy replies, and Merlin knows he is thinking, _I’m sorry you don’t remember Merlin_ , and Merlin is too.

“Don't be. Just know that having something to lose is what makes life worth living. Now, let's go and save your girl.”

“I missed you, Harry.”

Merlin stands straight as he walks through the door. “Gentlemen, I hate to break up a party. We're nearly there, so I suggest we get ready.”

—————

He didn’t think it would end this way.

Him pushing Eggsy off a landmine so he could take his place. But it’s fine, he thinks, as he watches Harry watch him, like he had watched over Harry at the Church. He doesn’t have Harry’s voice in his ear, but he has him by his side which is better, but he can’t take him in his arms, which is worse. Harry doesn’t remember him, not as Ian, but that is fine too because that means that Harry will never have to live with the pain the way he has every single day since he saw Harry’s brains fly out of the back of his skull.

He thinks about the pile of ash that thrice-damned place is now and he feels at peace.

He begins to sing.

He was wrong. He has Harry in his head. He can remember everything Harry said to him before he stepped out of the church and it plays on a loop in his mind.

And still he sings.

He sings as he nods at Harry, taking one long, last look at the man he has loved since Harry kissed him in that dark alleyway all those lifetimes ago. So many memories in these last moments. The sound of Harry’s voice telling Merlin that he loves him, what he imagined it would have sounded like to have Harry call him husband.

And still he sings.

He sings as he nods at Eggsy, the lad crying not only for Merlin, his friend, but for Harry and Ian, and the happy ending that they’ll never have. He wants to tell Eggsy it’s fine, because yes, he is going to die, but he is dying to save the man he loves and the lad who has become like an annoying son he never wanted but is glad he got, and because when he does he will no longer have to live with the pain of looking into Harry’s eyes and not seeing himself there. _His_ Harry doesn’t exist now, and he won’t have to live in a world where that is true.

And still he sings.

Poppy’s guards move towards him and his agents slip away into the green.

He sees Harry, his Harry, before him. Every incarnation of of him, standing behind the guards who laugh because they don't understand that that Death has arrived for them singing John Denver in a Scottish accent. There is the young Harry with the candy floss curls twisting in the wind, a little rat dog in his arms. The thirty-something Harry raging at Ian who is too much of a coward to love him back. The middle-aged Harry who once again was the better man for allowing them to finally have the life they should have had for all those years. The Harry he would have seen waiting at the altar had he been able to propose, so handsome and smart in his tux. They all blend into one man before his eyes.

His love, his life, his _Hart_.

His Harry beckons to him, his arms opening. Ian fixes his eyes on Harry and smiles, his heart so full, so happy.

And still.

And still.

He sings.

He reaches up, pulling the chain out from under his shirt and gripping the ring tight. _Just know that having something to lose is what makes life worth living_ , Harry told Eggsy on the plane.

_And it also makes my life worth_ giving _, Harry,_ Merlin thinks, _for you, and for Eggsy._

He steps forward.

—————

Eggsy can feel the adrenaline leaving him, seeping out of his veins and leaving behind it pain and rage and still the bone marrow deep need to avenge.

Charlie is dead. Poppy too, because he gave her too much of the good stuff. He's not sure if Harry knows that Eggsy knew exactly what he was doing, but at the moment he didn’t much care. That fucking cunt had taken everything from him, so he was taking everything from her. Now that he thinks about it it wasn’t the smartest decision he had ever made, considering that she could have been too smacked up to give them the password, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about craters in the ground where people he loves once were. He was thinking about a stupid country fucking music song stopped with a bang.

All he was thinking was that she needed to fucking die.

Now there’s no one left to kill. Jack is alive, trussed up on the floor like a pig, because even in his rage of loss, even though Jack had the fucking audacity to put a goddamn noose around Harry’s neck, Eggsy couldn’t bring himself to kill the man. No, Statesman should have the right to deal with him as they see fit, and pass whatever sentence they see fit as well.

Eggsy paces the floor, back and forth, forth and back, resting the urge to kick Jack right in the head.

Just because he didn’t want to kill him didn’t mean he forgot about that noose shit. A noose around Harry’s fucking neck. Jack’s lucky that Merlin is feeding the fucking ants right now because had he saw that Poppy’s mincer would have been merciful compared to what Merlin would have done.

And ain’t that the fucking topper on it all. Merlin blows himself up to save Eggsy’s sorry arse, and Harry, the man he fucking worships, and Harry doesn’t even know it.

Harry knows he lost a friend, Eggsy can see that in the way he stares blankly ahead, in the same adrenaline crash clusterfuck that Eggsy is stewing in, but he doesn’t know the depth of what he really lost.

And maybe that’s a blessing because Eggsy doesn’t think he can handle another year of trying to keep someone else alive.

“When I get out of these ropes, son,” Eggsy rolls his eyes, “I am going to kick your…” A dull clang breaks off Jack’s tired threats. Eggsy turns to see Harry dropping the same pan Jack threw at Harry next to his unconscious head.

“He had that coming. Long story.”

“Tell me sometime when I can think straight, bruv. Do you think we should go out there and see if Merlin survived?”

Harry comes over to Eggsy, and puts his hands on Eggsy’s shoulders. “Eggsy, I was in the military. I have seen what happens when someone steps on a landmine. I think Merlin would prefer that we remember him as he was and not let our final memories of him be whatever we would find out there in the trees. It would be…”

“Right. Is that what happened to my dad? Did you and Merlin have to stand there covered in him or something?” Eggsy asks, blurting it out as the thought occurs to him, and his eyes tearing up. He makes to turn away from Harry because Harry seeing him turn into some snotty-nosed kid is the last thing that he wants, but Harry just pulls him to him and hugs Eggsy. “No, Eggsy, with your father the blast was, well, it was contained, and it was as if he was sleeping. It was very quick, and he was very brave, and you are very much a man I think he would be proud of. You are a man I am proud of, as was Merlin.”

Eggsy breaks then, reaching around Harry and clutching the back of his already ruined suit. He breaks for Merlin and Rox and JB and Perce and Brandon and Arthur. He breaks because he has spent the last year thinking Harry was gone and the last thing Harry was was disappointed in someone he placed so much hope in. He breaks because Harry is back and Harry doesn’t even know that the man he just lost was the one that he had loved since before Eggsy was born.

He breaks for them all.

—————

Eggsy falls asleep on the plane ride home. Jack is spending the trip shoved in the bathroom loo with tape over his mouth, and Harry hopes, with all sarcasm, that he doesn’t get airsick because that would be an absolute shame if the cunt asphyxiated on his own vomit before they got back to the states.

If only for Jason’s sake, he hopes that whatever made Jack act like even more of an arsehole than usual was due to the Alpha Gel. If it wasn’t, Harry plans to ask Champ if he can have a go before they do whatever they do to traitors over in the States.

At least Statesman being in the “booze business” as Jason loves to say means that the plane bar has enough alcohol that Harry can get well and truly drunk.

Which he is, or at least getting there, as the year as his butterfly obsessed alter ego has left his once fantastic tolerance lower than it was when he was a teen. He will have to work at regaining it, a task he feels he will have no issue with applying himself to.

He’s Arthur now, after all, and he has expectations to uphold.

Arthur, he thinks with a derisive sniff, Arthur with no table. Arthur with no Camelot. Arthur, AKA Galahad the former, and Galahad the Current, the two Kingsman agents who hang on to life like shit on a dog’s arse. A thought that makes him laugh,.

His tolerance is _abhorrent._

He stands behind the bar, weaving. He wishes Merlin was here. He doesn’t remember much about him, he just knows that Merlin has always been there, always has been by his side when he needed him, and Harry sure as hell needs someone now. He needs Merlin because… and there is an almost memory he prods with metaphorical finger tips. It hurts like a deep bruise that you don’t know you have until something touches it, and then it’s all you can feel.

Harry makes another drink, and keeps poking, feeling the pain bloom in his mind. Something is there, he knows it, more memories of his life that Ginger said would come back or they wouldn’t. She didn’t know between the Alpha Gel and the steps he and she took to try to make Harry the Butterfly Guy permanently.

He pokes and pokes, final images skittering across his consciousness. Merlin laughing about something. His umbrella. _Daddy’s working_. An alleyway.

He passes out, his martini falling to the floor to soak into the carpet. By the time they land in Kentucky once more, the blinding headache he wakes with erases any thought of that bruise.

—————

Harry shuddered when Champ suggested one of them take up the mantle of Whiskey. As if Harry could work around someone one who spit good whiskey into a spittoon. He respects Champ of course, they are both the heads of their respective — well Champ has an agency, he has Eggsy — but for the sake of argument, agencies, but a _spittoon_. In public. He might as well ask Harry to wear a denim jacket and chew tobacco.

It surprised him that Eggsy didn’t take him up on the offer, however. Eggsy would have, with his complete disinterest in rules and high society, fit in quite well, although Harry is happy that Eggsy awkwardly demurred as well. Harry thinks about going back to oversee the distillery in Scotland and seeing what is, and he can’t even begin to imagine it, or doesn’t want to, left of the shop, the manor, _his home_ , alone.

He’d do it. Of course he would, because this Harry Hart does what needs to be done whether it be turning his back on his family before they turned on him, killing an innocent to save the lives of many, or rebuilding Kingsman with his own hands. He certainly doesn’t disappear into the Canadian wilds to hunt butterflies when there are responsibilities to shoulder, not matter how much he wants to.

And he wants to.

Although Jason does not know it it yet, he will join them in England in a month or so, not only to give them an extra hand in getting their respective shit together, both in London and in Scotland, but also, because, and Harry thinks this is wise, Jason needs to be away from Statesman when they have the needed discussion with Jack. He was in complete agreement when Champ suggested it after the meeting. If the discussions end favorably, then Jason can come home knowing that all well that ends well. If they do not, well, Jason will be far away from any potential conflicts of interest that could occur when one is asked to murder one’s lover.

Harry murdered his wife once.

He nearly drops the soft gray cotton he is folding, which he is taking because it is comfortable, thank you, not because he is sentimental, when he remembers snugging the muzzle of his gun against the indentation at the base of Tessa’s skull and pulling the trigger. He remembers the satisfaction he felt watching blood, bone, and slimy, oozing bits of gray matter fly out of her forehead.

_“It was like fucking a corpse.”_

It most certainly was, not nearly as enjoyable as…

Blank.

Well, who ever he was fucking at the time. They couldn’t have been important. As Ginger said, it would come back or it wouldn’t. Harry forcing it would only make it worse.

He packs the half memory away like he packs away the sweatshirt, a part of his life from before. Before he died, before they resurrected him by no wish of his own, before when he was happy, first as Galahad and then as simply Harry the Lepidopterist.

Now he is just Arthur and he doesn’t think he will have much happiness at all.

—————

**One week after Cambodia**

Merlin wakes. Everything hurts and Harry isn’t there. He's out before he has another thought.

Merlin wakes again. The pain is still there, but it is swaddled in cotton. He feels swaddled in cotton. Everything is white and too bright. His left foot itches like the devil but he can’t remember how to work his arms so he can’t scratch it. Merlin doesn’t know where he is. He’s barely sure of who he is. He tries to yell for someone because his foot fucking itches and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

A strap lies across his chest keeping him on the bed but his hands, whose modus operandi are still a mystery, are not restrained. There is an IV in one, hooked to a bag above his head and they both lie by his sides, the fingers giving small twitches each time he thinks about moving them. He looks down to see if his legs are restrained only…

Only they aren’t _there._

The sheet covers him but he can distinctly see, or as distinctly as is possible with whatever is flowing out of that bag into his blood stream, that his right leg ends about four inches below his knee and his left cuts off above the knee.

He can’t breathe.

_Country roads…_

Harry. Eggsy. The click of the lad’s shoe on a land mine. His choice to die in their place.

_Take me home…_

Eggsy and Harry, the man who no longer remembers him, slipping away into the jungle to finish the mission. The vision of his Harry welcoming him to his death.

_To the place where I belong…_

He didn’t die. He was supposed to. He chose to. He wanted to. He remembers that with the most clarity, the acceptance and the happiness that this year of pain and suffering and grief would be over. But he didn’t. Instead he is here, wherever here is, and his legs are somewhere else, not attached, not with him.

And his left fucking foot still fucking itches.

Merlin screams.

As he screams someone, something as white and bland as the room, comes in to do handle the bag attached to his IV. Merlin tries to reach out to grab the figure next to his bed. His arms fumble though and he just ends up batting at the person next to him.

He is still screaming. His legs, or what is left, move like they are trying to kick and it hurts. Oh, how it fucking hurts to move them. Like he's still standing on that landmine, feeling it pulverize bone and flesh, the heat cooking him where he stands before he flies apart, so much meat all over the jungle floor.

Only he is not so much meat. He is here and his legs are the meat. He is here and he's not supposed to be.

Whoever came in upped the drugs that are emptying into his veins because the cotton is getting thicker and so is his tongue.

Right before the darkness takes him he realizes he is not screaming wordless vocalizations. He is screaming _where are my legs, where are my legs,_ over and over.

He knows where they are. They’re where the rest of him should be as well.

—————

Merlin wakes.

For a moment it confuses him, again. Bright, white room, his first thought is that he is with Colton, and then possibly in Harry’s room in Kentucky, then his left foot itches and he remembers he doesn’t have a left foot any more.

He breathes deep against the rising hysteria, not wanting more drugs, or more than he already has, because he knows he has to be in pain even if he can’t feel it.

He stares at the bed where his legs should be, trying to summon up the courage to look but it fails him. He can look at what is left with the sheet and and blanket over him because it makes it easier to believe that maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. It is. It really fucking is, but knowing his lower legs are gone, and seeing what they look like now, are two very different things.

He glances around the room. A medical wing rather than a room pressed into medical service. The equipment is high tech, some he doesn’t even recognize, and some he does, but it is much nicer than what they have, _had_ , at Kingsman. The IV bag is still above him, and his chart is at the foot of the bed which he can’t reach because the strap still holds him at chest level.

He looks around for a call button. There is none. He calls out a hello which is a waste of time since between his screaming fit and the fact that his throat feels like it is coated with all the dirt from the jungle floor, he sounds like a frog with strep.

So, being Merlin, he improvises. There is a vase with artificial flowers, serving no purpose, on the small bedside table, which he grabs and bangs against the table as loud as he can.

_Thump-thump-thump_

He does this for a full minute, and his arm is already tiring, when a fucking robot glides into the room.

“How may I be of assistance?” she asks and Merlin wonders if he is in heaven or hell.

“You can get me someone to fucking talk to,” he states, allowing the vase to drop out of his hand. It wobbles and turns a small circle on its base, threatening to tumble over, but before it can complete a second circular motion the robot is there to right it and look down at him. She hands him a glass of water which he drinks.

“You are talking to me,” she replies with about as much emotion as her face shows.

“No, I mean a human, someone who can tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“I can tell you what the fuck is going on if you would like.”

“No,” Merlin answers, his brogue coming out, “you can’t. I want to speak to whoever is in charge, and I want to speak to them now.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“The human, the human in charge, the person who… fixed my legs, kept me alive.”

“Ah, Dr. Steele. I will get him for you. Just a moment.”

“Yes, thank you, fucking Christ,” he says to her retreating metal back.

Another robot glides in. Merlin wants to bang his head against the wall but he doesn’t know how he would get to it to do so.

“Your friend just left to find the doctor for me, if she’s who you’re looking for.”

“Mr. Kingsman, I am Dr. Steele.” He looks as much like a man as the female robot looks like a woman. Ken Doll brown hair, blank eyes, white face and a lab coat that isn’t so much of a coat as it is his actual body. He moves with the same gliding motion the other one did.

“You have got to be kidding me. Am I on Candid Fucking Camera? Come here, I want to whisper something in your ear.”

“I assure you, Mr. Kingsman, you need not whisper, I have excellent hearing.”

“On second thought, don’t come over here because I may rip your head off. There are two things I want.”

“Anything we can provide, we will do so happily. We are happy to serve.”

“Good. First, I want a fucking drink. Not water, not tea. I want liquor. Whiskey or scotch preferably, but I will take fucking Peach Schnapps if you have it. Two, I want to speak to a human, the one in charge. I want both things now before the drugs knock me out again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mr. Kingsman, but I…”

“Why in the fuck are you calling me Mr. Kingsman?” Merlin bellows.

“The belongings we found next to you had K’s and the word Kingsman covering their surfaces. We assumed it was your name.”

“My name is Merlin.” He rubs a hand over his face. He really needs a drink, or a higher adjustment of the pain medication, or both, at this point. “Just fucking… just call me that.”

“Of course, Mr. Merlin, sir.”

“Not Mr. Merlin. Not sir. Just Merlin.”

“Ms. Poppy was very adamant that proper respect is shown at all times to humans.”

“Fuck her. Call me Merlin or I’ll rewire your hard drive.”

“Of course, Merlin.”

“About that drink and your boss.”

“I am very sorry to say that I cannot fulfill either of those requests, Merlin.”

“Why the hell not? Am I a prisoner then? Not allowed to speak to anyone besides robots? It’s not like your owners don’t have to worry about me running away.”

“I cannot give you alcohol as that will react negatively with the medication you are currently on for pain and to prevent infection.”

“And the other?”

“There are no humans here except for you.”

“That is bullshit. How the fuck did I get here? Who took care of my legs?”

“I did, Merlin. I and Claudia, the other robot you just met, have been caring for you since we found you after the battle.”

“So you are telling me that I am the only human on this godforsaken mountain.”

“Well I am not completely sure there aren’t humans on other parts of the…”

“Here,” Merlin yells, “I am the only human _here_ , on this specific part of the mountain, within Poppy’s base.”

“Yes.”

“And you, with the help of another robot, put Humpty Dumpty back together again?”

“I am afraid I don’t understand.”

“You fixed me.”

“Yes, as much as we could. I can go over your prognosis and plan of care with you if you would like.”

“What I would like is that fucking drink. And then I would like you, and your friend, to come in here and explain to me what exactly has been going on since I tried to die on a land mine.”

“I am afraid I cannot give you alcohol, it would…”

“Yes, so you said. Tell me something Steele, who do you answer to?”

“I am programed to answer to the highest ranking human.”

“And who is the highest ranking human?”

Steel appears to think for a moment. “You, sir.”

“Excellent. Get me that fucking drink and get back in here. And bring some more fucking morphine. If my left foot doesn’t stop itching, I am going to crawl out there, find the pieces, put it back together, and then scratch it. At least the morphine knocks me out hard enough that I can’t feel something that isn’t there any longer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s fucking _Merlin._ ”

Merlin lays in his bed because he really has no choice, and because that whiskey, the _one_ , that Dr. Steele brought him in a most begrudging manner, if robots can be begrudging, is mixing with the pain medication. Merlin is, not to put too fine of a point on it, fucked up.

The room is swimming as much as his mind is and he keeps circling around the same thoughts. One, his legs are gone, well mostly gone. He’s nearly-knee-less like that ghost in that book about the fucking kid under the cupboard, or where ever the hell he lived and was a wizard. Harry Hart, the man who lived. No, wait, that is his Harry that lived. What was the kids name? Anyway someone was nearly something-less and Merlin can’t be arsed to figure out exactly what-less the ghost person thing was.

Two, he is the only human on a mountaintop with two robots to keep him company. All the times people accused him of being a machine and now he is going to be part one and will have be made that way by other machines. The Merlinator. He giggles. These drugs are “fucking prime” as Eggsy would say. He should call the lad up and have him come try some. But he can't because he’s on a goddamn mountaintop and nearly knee-less so he can’t even walk down it.

Three, and this thought pisses him off because he is not sober enough to properly think about it, but the little toe rag Charlie had a mechanized arm, one that was most likely built here. So maybe he can build himself some legs and really become The Merlinator, a name which he one hundred percent knows that fucking Eggsy would drive into the ground if he ever heard it until Merlin drove him into the ground, like a post, with a large hammer, or his fist.

He hits the call button that Dr. Steele gave him to summon him or Claudia if he needs them.

“Yes, Merlin,” Dr. Steele’s warm, yet robotic voice comes over the intercom attached to his bed.

“Listen,” he slurs, “remind me to ask you about my legs.”

“I have explained where your legs are, Merlin. Have you forgotten where they are?”

“Did that bitch program you to be a smart-arse?”

“My apologies.”

“If I am going to be stuck on this fucking mountain with you, you’re going to have to download a sense of humor.”

“I shall endeavor to, Merlin.”

“Good, but remind me to ask you about my legs. About being the Merlinator.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Makes two of us. Night night now.”

Merlin passes out.

The next morning he wakes up to realize he is naked. He can see where his legs end in bandages, and for a moment that takes his mind off the fact that Claudia the Robot is currently giving him a sponge bath.

“Good morning,” she says, “I thought this might make you more comfortable. If you like, once I help you get dressed and show you how to change your own bandages, I can show you how to transfer yourself to your wheelchair.”

“Um, great,” he says, and while he has never been one for body shame, this whole thing has him just a bit discomfited.

“Despite standing on a mine, you were largely unharmed, other than your legs, and a few wounds to your arms and head.” She brings the wet cloth down around his groin and he thanks every single deity he can think of that he never had a robot kink.

“You have a nice penis. Very large.”

“Excuse me?” Merlin asks, choking on his own spit.

“Is that not a compliment? One man that worked here when Ms. Poppy was here, he liked to show me his penis while he stroked it. He liked me saying that. My apologies if it is not polite.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, no, that is not something that you say to someone as complimentary as it might be.”

She stops in mid motion for a moment, still looking at his, thankfully, flaccid cock.

“What are you doing?” he asks, feeling hysterical at this point.

“Writing that into my memory.”

“My cock or the etiquette?”

“Both. Is that the proper term? Cock? Dr. Steele believes we must learn everything we can about you to help you assimilate to your new life with us.”

“I doubt my cock will come into play.”

“Best to be prepared.”

——————

Despite having spent time in the army with a lifetime in Kingsman, and seeing what bombs can do, nothing prepares Harry for seeing what they have done to his life. Eggsy takes him to the shop first and Harry barely keeps his legs under him when he sees the devastation wrought upon Kingsman. Valentine may have taken his eye, but that utter bitch Poppy took his life just as surely as if she would have shoved the missile right down his throat before detonating it.

It’s been just a few days short of a month and the charred wood has been cleaned up, the melted glass disposed of, leaving an empty alley where Kingsman Tailors once stood. Harry has spent the last year not knowing who he was but experiencing that in a very controlled environment, and now he knows who he is and everything familiar in his world has been ripped away from him. Home, friends, Kingsman. His environment is the epitome of uncontrolled. All he has is Eggsy to anchor him. He sways on his feet, just a little, and hopes Eggsy doesn’t notice. He can tell by the way Eggsy’s eyes zero in on him that he has, but he doesn’t mention it. He moves closer to Harry, as if he wants to be there in case Harry keels over.

“Before we left Merlin got in touch with our solicitor and started the rebuilding process. We can call him to find out exactly where we are with that. Merlin had wanted it underway when we…” Eggsy’s voice falters. It seems Eggsy, who has lost so much over his life, still feels each one as keenly. Eggsy lost Merlin but gained Harry and Harry wonders if the boy thinks it was a fair trade. From what little he remembers of Merlin he doesn’t think it was. Merlin was _Merlin_ and was more of a backbone of Kingsman than Harry ever was.

“Yes,” Harry says, happy to have at least one thing he can do, calling the solicitor, and hoping that will lead to another step and another before anyone realizes he is woefully under prepared for the role he has been thrust in to. “Let’s check on the manor next.”

“But what about your…”

“I am sure that the house looks much like the shop here does. Staring at another blank space will hardly be productive. And, from what you said, it was your house anyway. What did you do with all my things?” Harry asks, struck by the hope that something survived. “I can’t imagine you kept anything.”

“Um, right, actually I did.” Eggsy scuffs the sole of his trainers against the pavement. “I kept quite a bit of it, and the rest Merlin packed up. Some was at his flat, and the rest he put in to storage somewhere I think. But most, Harry, like Mr. P, was in the house.”

“Mr. P?”

“Mr. Pickle, that’s what I called him, Mr. P. I used to brush him out when I was checking on the house.”

“Why was it even left in the house to begin with? I was dead, or was Kingsman so broken up over my loss that they kept it as some sort of odd shrine?” Harry meant the question as a joke but grows suspicious when Eggsy refuses to meet his eyes. “Eggsy?”

“Oh, there’s the car. Long drive, best get to it,” Eggsy says instead of answering, ushering Harry towards the car with a hand at his back.

On the way Harry calls Mr. Edwards, the no nonsense solicitor whose family has served Kingsman since the very first Table gathered after the war. Unflappable as always he barely pauses when Harry tells him who he is, merely saying it was a pleasure to have him back and should he assume that Harry will take up the mantle of Arthur now. Harry forces himself to reply a simple, “yes,” before Edwards assures Harry that Mr. McClaggen’s instructions, which comprised “making some sort of sense out of the monumental clusterfuck they were in” while he and Mr. Unwin sought out their friends in the States, had been followed to the letter. There was a team at the manor currently if he would like to speak with them in person.

Harry responds in all the right places, and by the end of the call he has a more substantial to do beyond:

1\. Call the Solicitor.

2\. Find a way to politely ditch Eggsy for the evening so he can work on raising his alcohol tolerance higher than an underweight teen.

Now he has a:

3\. Meet with the contractor to approve the design on the manor.

And:

4\. Meet with the architect to plan the shop build.

One is finished and two would be well underway within the next eight hours. Harry was already dreaming of the bottle because he was getting the most atrocious headache.

They pull up and Harry is buoyed by the fact that not only is the debris cleared away but there are evident signs of rebuilding. Scaffolds and framing are scattered around the lawn. Harry can see where they are mapping out the manor almost exactly as it was before the attack, _monumental clusterfuck_ the Merlin in his head supplies, happened. Harry thinks of a few changes he wishes to make and walks around the site asking who the contractor is.

One worker points to a trio off at the far east end of the manor, two men and a woman, one man holding plans and pointing while the other two shade their eyes with their hand and look where he is directing.

Eggsy trots alongside him as he approaches the group because Harry, while normally a gentleman, still has the beginning of that headache — which Ginger said would be an issue as he gets used to being without the drugs that kept him Harry the Lepidopterist and not Harry the Killer — and he can’t be arsed to match his steps to Eggsy’s. Eggsy proves he is a gentleman by not mentioning it. Harry definitely knows who the bigger man here is. It’s not him.

“Hello,” Harry calls.

The three turn at once.

At once three things happen.

Eggsy stiffens and chokes out “Rox?”

Roxanne and Alistair who are dead but apparently are only dead like Harry was dead, who instead are also clinging to life like shit on a dog’s arse — note, Harry doesn’t laugh this time — pull their guns on him and Eggsy.

And Harry, who is now in the throes of the most blinding fucking headache he has ever had the misfortune of having in his miserable, hairy, clinging turd _life_ , whispers, "Alistair?" before keeling over in a faint. Only this time Eggsy isn’t close enough to catch him.

—————

Eggsy makes a move to crouch down next to Harry and hears the safety of both guns clicking.

“Are you two fucking joking with this shit? Harry is on the fucking ground, in the dirt, a man who was shot in the fucking head a year ago, and you two are going to keep your guns on me?”

“You must see that this is highly unusual, Eggsy,” Percival says, his voice as calm as a brackish pond, “I would hope you would act in the same manner if faced with this.”

Rox just keeps her gun on him and he remembers how she pointed at him when he walked off the bullet train, the blood of Chester King still fresh on his hands. Her face wasn’t white as sheet then though, and she didn’t look like she was deciding whether she should shoot him or hug him.

“I am facing this. You guys were supposed to be dead and yet here you are picking out flooring for the manor? But I ain’t got a gun on you, yeah? Because you’re my _friends_ , you’re my fellow fucking agents. And I certainly wouldn’t stand there while one of us, in fact our Arthur, is lying facedown in the goddamn dirt.”

This seems to make Percival falter a little, whether it’s because it’s Harry who he thought was dead, or that Harry, by default of being the most senior agent during what is arguably the lowest point in Kingsman’s history, is Arthur, Eggsy doesn’t know.

“Roxanne?” he says, ignoring the tiny, almost imperceptible jump she gives at the sound of her name, “Keep your gun on them. I am going over there and helping Eggsy with Harry. We will take them into the shed that is doubling as an office,” Percival points with his gun to a small building to the right that Eggsy hadn’t noticed before. “If you see anything threatening, from either of them, shoot. I’ll leave it up to you to decide the level of force.”

Rox pales further but nods. Percival clicks the safety back on his gun before sliding back into the holster under his arm.

Eggsy rolls his eyes, muttering _Jesus fucking Christ_ , but grabs Harry’s right arm, slinging it over his shoulder while Percival does the same with his left. Slowly they move him towards the building.

“Harry’s going to be proper pissed when he sees scuff marks on his shoes, bruv.”

“If he can live through a head shot, he can live through that, I’m sure.”

“I see living through a bombing did fuck all for your sense of humor,” Eggsy says, and smiles to himself when he sees the smile that Percival tries to, and almost succeeds, in hiding.

Once they get Harry somewhat laid out on the small sofa that is in the room, and that means that his body is on it but his long legs and stupidly large feet are dangling over the arm, Percival follows Eggsy into the small loo and so he can wet a flannel for Harry’s head.

Eggsy takes Harry’s pulse and arranges the flannel over his head before turning around to find that they still point both guns at him.

Fucking hell.

“So, is this a permanent thing? Gonna follow me around all the time, ready to shoot me if I burp at the wrong time?”

“It’s a permanent thing until you tell us what the fuck is going on,” Percival answers. Rox has yet to say anything. She just stares at Harry and then Eggsy and then Harry again.

“Can I sit down? Got anything to drink?”

“Yes and no.”

“I would say surviving the missiles made your actually fucking worse, Perce. Jesus. What the fuck happened to being a damn gentleman?”

“I must have forgotten how when someone tried to kill me and two people I thought I could trust disappear without a fucking word until one of them show up with someone I know is dead in tow.”

Eggsy sits. And then he tells them everything that had happened from Eggsy pulling a gun on Merlin, much they are pulling theirs on him now, to finding Harry, to bringing him back to actually being Harry, to taking down Poppy. He can see the slow relaxation of Percival’s stance, the pinched look of disbelief leaving his face, and by the way his eyes keep flicking to Harry, the wonder at having his friend back once more. Eggsy is just about to call it good and taken care of when he sees something flicker through Percival’s eyes.

“Eggsy, where is Merlin?”

“He’s gone, Perce. Fuck me, I am sorry, bruv, I didn’t even think about that, about you and him.”

The gun shakes once. “Gone?”

“Before we went against Poppy, we were going through the jungle trying to get into her base and I stepped on a land mine. Merlin gave me some shit about this spray freezing it so we all time to get away. Then he pushed me off of it and stepped on it himself. He distracted Poppy’s men so Harry and I could slip away. When they got close enough he…”

Eggsy wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Rox is blinking and breathing slowly through her mouth and Percival, well he just looks devastated.

“No,” he says, “no. Did you see his body?”

“We didn’t look, Harry said there wasn’t…”

“Much of a point,” Percival finishes.

“Yeah.”

“My god, how is Harry holding up?”

Eggsy jumps up from his seat causing the guns that slowly pointed to the floor to train on him immediately.

“Whoa, I was just going to say that we need to have this conversation somewhere away from him,” Eggsy says, nodding towards Harry’s still unconscious form.

“Trying to separate us?”

“For fuck’s sake, _no_ , Perce, but I am trying to honor Merlin’s wishes. If you don’t trust me yet, let Rox stay here and keep pointing a gun at a man who can disarm her while he is unconscious, and you and me can go somewhere else so I can tell what the fuck is going on while you pretend like you will still shoot me, yeah?”

“Fine, put away your gun Roxanne, but please keep an eye on Harry. Eggsy and I are going to step into the back. Please keep in mind that I can still kill you, Eggsy, so I do hope this isn’t a ruse.”

Percival ushers Eggsy into the office area and pours himself and Eggsy a drink. He then drinks both. Pours two more, drinks them both and then finally hands one to Eggsy.

“Perce… Alistair, fuck mate, I am _sorry_.”

“Please, Eggsy, please don’t. I am holding on by my fingernails here. Just,” he pours another, “just tell me what in the hell is going on.”

“You know how I said when we found Harry he didn’t remember anything? Well there was a problem when he got his memories back. Problem was while he remembered us, remembered Merlin, he didn’t remember _Ian_.”

“And the idiot didn’t tell him. He had a second chance with Harry, something I would give anything for with James… and now him.” He pours himself another drink.

“Maybe put the bottle down, yeah?”

“Maybe fuck off and keep talking, yeah?” Percival answers in an appalling chav accent.

“Merlin said that he didn’t want to tell Harry and Harry still not remember him. He didn’t want Harry to reject him, or worse, not reject him and be with him out of some idea of obligation. If Harry remembered him on his own, that was fine, but he wouldn't push, and he made it clear I was not to tell him.”

“Even now you’re following that order? Don’t you think Harry has a right to know?”

Eggsy knocks his drink back and slams the glass on the desk.

“Of course I fucking do. But what good is it to tell Harry now? Merlin is gone. He’s fucking shattered into a million bloody fucking pieces because I was too fucking stupid not to step on a goddamn landmine, and I am supposed to tell the other half of some epic love story bullshit that he had time to tell Merlin all the things he would want to tell him but he can’t now because he’s scattered across a mountain in Cambodia. You saw what it did to Merlin. Do you want to go through that with Harry? I can’t take care of both of you.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Too fucking bad.”

“But I agree, telling Harry now would be heartless. If he can go for the rest of his life without ever remembering what he has lost, then he is far luckier than Merlin or I.”

“Harry is awake, gentlemen,” Rox calls out from the other room.

Eggsy rushes out and crouches down in front of Harry who has sat up and is shaking his head to clear it.

“You alright, Harry?” Eggsy asks, peering into his eyes. Eggsy is trying to remember if Harry slammed his head into the ground. “You remember everyone here, yeah?”

“For god’s sake, Eggsy, yes, I remember everyone here.”

Percival hands Harry a glass of whiskey.

“Where’s mine?” Eggsy and Rox both ask at the same time. Percival just shrugs. Fucking dick.

Eggsy is about to stand when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He looks up and Rox is standing next to him, her eyes wet, her lip trembling, not that he would ever point that out because he likes his bollocks exactly where they are. Eggsy stands, pulls her into his arms, and hugs her so tight he lifts her off her feet. He’s crying, she’s crying, while he whispers _thank you, thank you_ into her hair.

Harry and Percival sit behind them on the sofa, sipping whiskey. Percival must really feel the liquor because he reaches one hand over and pokes Harry in the leg.

“I can’t believe a fucking bullet to the head couldn’t kill you,” he says while he pokes.

“Says the man who survived a fucking missile. I would say you are worse than a cockroach but I’d rather not insult the insect.”

“Too close to your precious butterflies? Bugs are bugs,” Percival says, eyeing Harry out of the side of his face.

“Not at all. You see, butterflies are beautiful creatures that bring joy and wonder. Roaches just bring pestilence and shit on your counters. Certainly you can see the similarities.”

Eggsy and Rox have stopped hugging and are now watching the two men in front of them warily. Eggsy thought they were friends, that was the impression Percival gave before, but Eggsy is questioning that.

“It’s too bad they couldn't have inserted a personality in that hole in your skull while you were out. It would have been quite the improvement,” Percival replies, pouring Harry another few fingers.

“I’m surprised the missile didn’t fly straight up your arse considering black holes suck in everything around them.”

Score one for fucking Harry because Percival ends up spitting his whiskey out and laughing until he is crying, and then crying because he is hugging Harry, who is laughing as well, and maybe crying, which sets Eggsy and Rox off all over again.

“Welcome home, Harry,” Percival says, wiping tears from his face.

“Thank you. I am thrilled to find you and Roxanne alive and well. I assume Eggsy filled you in on everything? The good,” Harry looks down into his glass before finishing it, “and the bad, but I would love to know how you two survived missiles that were literally launched into your rooms.”

“I got into the panic room that each agent’s room has in the closet,” Rox says, rooting around for two more glasses while Eggsy searches for more whiskey. Percival and Harry, because they are _twats_ , have almost polished off the first bottle. He finds it just as Roxy finds a couple of tea cups. “The manor still came down around my ears, and Belle was in the kennels. The workers found the dogs the same day they found the pile of battered panic rooms piled on top of each other. The ones who made it into the rooms were there for three days. I was the only one still alive by that time, though barely.”

“JB was at home with Brandon when the missile hit the Mews,” Eggsy says, taking her hand. She doesn’t pull away, instead she leans on him and brings his hand up until his arm is around her shoulders. He pulls her close and kisses the top of her head.

“And you Alistair? Merlin was quite convinced you were at home when the attack happened.”

Eggsy sees the skin around Percival’s eyes and mouth tighten at the mention of Merlin’s name and he reaches over to top of his glass. Percival raises it to him in thanks.

“I was at home, at first. We were having a Table meeting that night, all the agents were in town for once, but our new Arthur was adamant that Kingsman incorporate down time into the agent’s lives so we mutually agreed to hold the meeting over the glasses, except for Eggsy, who was sucking up to his future in-laws. How did that go?”

“Jury’s still out. Til and me are alright, now, but her parents think I’m the reason she likes to get high. Like she can’t smoke me under a damn table.”

“That is a Crown Princess you are talking about, Eggsy,” Harry says, aghast.

“Doesn’t mean she ain’t fucking pothead, bruv,” Eggsy says, grinning.

“Anyway…” Percival says, “I’m not finished.”

“Oh, please continue,” Harry says, full of false contrition.

“I was at home, but I decided that the gardens behind the house would be preferable to the office, so I patched in through the server in the house. I was in the far end of the garden when my house was destroyed. Far enough away that I wasn’t killed, but close enough that the blast threw me against the back wall of a neighboring house. They discharged me last week.”

“He threatened to bring the hospital down on their heads if they didn’t let him out,” Rox says, still under Eggsy’s arm. “He has to go back every other day as a condition of his release.”

“You make it sound like I am under house arrest, Roxanne.”

“You should be. You should still be in the hospital bed. You have skull damage.”

“He’s always had skull damage, my dear, and he’s survived this long,” Harry adds, “I wouldn’t worry about him too much,” Harry says, waving his hand about, the one with the glass, and almost sloshing his drink all over Percival.

“Alright, I think both of you have had quite enough,” Eggsy says, taking the bottle out of Percival’s hands.

“When did you become a mother hen?” Harry asks, refusing to give over his glass and drinking it at once.

“You should have seen him with…” Percival starts and snaps his mouth shut.

“With some of the new recruits that got a little drunk one night,” Roxy finishes.

“Right, so what is going on with Kingsman? What can we do?” Eggsy asks.

“What is there to do?” Percival responds. “We now have three agents and an Arthur,” he says clapping Harry on the shoulder, “you unlucky bastard, but no Merlin, no manor, and no shop. We can’t hold trials for candidates because we have no place to train them. We can’t train them because we have no trainers other than us. And we have no missions because we have no intel. We were only here with the builder because we couldn’t figure out anything else we could do.”

“We have something, although I don’t know how much good it will do. Our friends in Statesman have bought a distillery in Scotland for us to work out of while we rebuild here. We can set up the tailor shop next to Berry Brothers, our wine merchants… My god,” Harry says, pausing, “no one made it out of the shop? Were the tailors there?”

“Old Leo was, he was just closing up. He was replacing some fabric for the morning crew. He shouldn’t have been there at all. We have two apprentices that had already left, and Dagonet who can’t hold a needle.”

“Dagonet may not be able to hold a needle, but he can certainly oversee the two apprentices, and is it possible that the shop in France could loan us someone?”

“I’ll call them and ask, Arthur,” Roxy says.

“Kiss-arse,” Eggsy whispers in here ear and gets a sharp jab between the ribs for it. “Fucking hell, Rox. Ow.”

“Getting slow Galahad, perhaps the first order of business should be making sure you’re still in fighting shape.”

“Rox, come on, don’t make me embarrass you in front of our new Arthur, yeah? Let Harry get to know you before he figures out I’m the best agent.”

Eggsy suddenly finds himself on his back with the point of Rox’s heel hovering above his throat.

“Uh, would your heels have the nerve toxin in them like my oxford’s do?”

“Possibly. Want to see?”

“Nah, Rox.”

“Guess Arthur knows who the best agent is now.”

“I do. It’s Percival because he has decided to forgo these childish games and simply pass out like the wastrel he is. I believe I will follow him. If you two would be kind enough to make the appropriate calls to Dagonet, the shop in France, and arrange for the empty space next to Berry Brothers to be purchased by us, and allocate some of the work crew over there as well, I would be very thankful.”

“Of course, Arthur, sir,” Rox says while Eggsy says, “Sure thing, guv.”

“Somehow I prefer Roxanne’s response, Eggsy,” Harry says before his eyes slide shut.

—————

Alistair stands in the flat he has paid the mortgage on faithfully, and has paid a cleaning crew to come in and clean once a week, for the past few years. He is barefoot with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. His suit jacket, waistcoat and tie are tossed on the couch next to him in a heap, his shoes by the door, socks tucked neatly within. He stands in front of the window that takes up the south-facing wall, his right arm down next to his side, his fingers grasping a tumbler full of scotch and his other arm crossed over his midsection, his hand loosely grasping the opposite elbow. A half arsed version of a hug, he muses, and then drains half the drink he had poured for himself. The city lights glitter across his glasses and his wet eyes.

Coming here last week after being discharged from the hospital was the first time he had come here since James died. It was meant to be a surprise for James, a home that would be the two of theirs and theirs only, since the flat they lived in for the entirety of their time together had been Alistair’s. Mostly because James was a well-to-do ragamuffin who lived out of random hotel rooms, lover’s bedrooms, and when he was in-between those, the small flat his parents kept in the city for visits prior to Kingsman.

When they started seeing each other after James made Lancelot James divided his time between his rooms at the manor and Alistair’s until it became just Alistair’s. Then Roxanne came to live with them and it was just theirs.

Alistair had bought this when Roxanne was getting close to graduating. The home all three of them shared would go to her, free and clear, one less thing for her to worry about, and he and James would move to this one. He had spent a year decorating it, filling it with pictures, mementos from their lives he knew James wouldn’t notice were missing, and the lush creature comforts that they both loved. Soft couches and a hedonistic bed covered in fine sheets, a rainfall shower big enough to fit them both with ample room to move around in and hot water that never ran out, a huge kitchen for James to cook in while Alistair drank wine and watched. He loved watching James.

He had been just weeks away from unveiling his surprise to both Roxanne and James when James decided that a recon mission needed to be turned into a hostage retrieval without calling in for backup. He hadn’t worn his glasses because he thought they made him look like a twat. And they did, a little, but Alistair hardly thought looking like less of a twat was worth getting your idiotic arse sliced in two.

Or leaving your family behind to mourn you. For your husband to try to drink himself to death while your niece by marriage demands to try to join Kingsman by winning your place.

Kingsman was not what they wanted for Roxanne. They did their best to not hide it from her, but to show her there was so much more out there for her besides dodging bullets, fucking marks, and finding out what someone’s life blood spilling out over your hands felt like. They wanted her to become an artist, a doctor, a fucking millennial on a permanent gap year if she wanted. They didn’t care as long as it didn’t involve a code name and a gun.

But even Alistair has to admit once he saw her in action as her other father’s successor, she was born for it. She is so much like him and Eggsy so much like James that Alistair was never more grateful that Roxanne preferred women because he, nor Kingsman, could withstand another duo like him and James, or even like Harry and Merlin.

James.

Merlin.

Both men he loves are gone. James he loved with the ferocity bordering on obsession, and he knows James felt the same way. The sparks that lit the minute they met smoldered throughout James candidacy, Alistair refusing to do anything with James other than eye fuck him into every wall he walked by until he either won or washed out. Their twenty-four hours were so sexually charged with tension that they had to relieve it by not touching each other, but watching each other touch themselves until they were blind with want and covered in their own come.

Two nights after James made Lancelot Alistair had him against the door of his flat as soon as it closed behind him and later, James had him in what would become their bed. Alistair knew they would be together until death, he just didn’t know it would come so soon. If soon can be counted as seventeen years. Lifetimes with James wouldn’t have been enough, however, so seventeen years, in his estimation, was _too fucking soon_.

Merlin was different. If the love for James was like kerosene on an open flame, the love he had for Merlin was a slow banked, steady burn. It had grown from lust, to a deep platonic love, much like what he still felt for Harry, to a homey, comfortable blaze when they had fallen into each other’s arms again, first for comfort and then because they wanted to. He was not _in_ love with Merlin when he went back to his bed, but within a month he was.

He had sat at home one night when he begged off seeing Merlin, telling him that he needed a night to himself, which Merlin accepted without question. He most likely thought that he was mourning James the same as he was still mourning Harry. And yes, Alistair was, he always would, but what he needed the space for was coming to terms with the fact that he was in love with Merlin and that Merlin, who might be ready some time in the future, was not ready to give him the same love in return. He couldn’t with the ghost of Harry being so near, and Alistair didn’t blame him one bit. That and the fact that a small part of him felt as if he was being unfaithful to James by loving Merlin.

He, unbeknownst to Merlin, had vivid fantasies of them together, and not just the lurid sexual kind either. Although those were lovely and frequent, and kept the cold away on long, boring sniper mission. No, the fantasies he loved were of them retiring together, which would be sooner rather than later for Merlin no matter how much he insisted he would be Merlin until the day they wheeled his body out of the manor, breaking his arms that would be stiff with rigor mortis, just to get that fucking clipboard from him. Alistair enjoyed picturing them on the coast of Italy where Merlin's olive skin would brown so beautifully and Alistair would have to bathe in sunblock so his pale, English Rose skin wouldn’t burn the minute he stepped outside. It differed from the retirement he had pictured for him and James. They would have filled theirs with traveling, every week in a different city. Homes bought in their favorite ports, dinner parties, and operas, and art galleries. Louder than he and Merlin, more vibrant, but neither less wonderful than the other option.

_It doesn’t matter anymore_ , he thinks, _since both men are dead now_.

Their ghosts stand on either side of him, the holes they have left in his heart gaping open, bleeding him dry with their absence, both of them reaching out to him. Alistair wonders, if given the chance, which one he would reach back to first.

Alistair stands in the quiet, drinking.

The city blurs before him as he crumples to his knees.

—————

Tequila sits on the other side of the glass watching Whiskey, because he sure as fuck ain’t his Jack anymore, pace the room that once held Harry. The butterflies still adorn the walls, or at least they do where Whiskey hasn’t ripped them down, and Tequila finds a perverse pleasure in knowing that the fact he’s locked up in there is driving Whiskey right around the fucking bend. Asshole deserves it, and more, if anyone is asking Tequila, which they ain’t, but still.

“I know someone is over there,” Whiskey says, coming up and punching the glass, which shudders but does not break, “I can fucking smell you.”

Tequila doubts that but when he twists the top off the next beer, he thumbs it at the glass. It hits right where Whiskey’s nose is one inch away from it on his side and he laughs when Whiskey jumps back, startled.

“Come on, Jase,” Whiskey says, his face becoming soft and pleading, “I know it’s you. Just talk to me, man. I haven’t heard another voice besides mine since they threw me in here. Please, I feel like I am going fucking crazy in here.”

_Going?_ Tequila thinks. Whiskey thinks he is going crazy now? Then what the fuck was all that back in Cambodia? Trying to kill Harry and Eggsy like they were the enemies, trying to keep the antidote from going out to save millions of people’s lives? _Tequila’s_ life? If he is crazy now, does that make him sane then? Because if he was sane then that means he was a bigger asshole than any of them ever knew and he never meant a thing to Whiskey, friend or otherwise, because he was ready for Tequila to die to prove a fucking prick ass of a fucking point.

He finishes the beer, pops the next one, thumbs the top at the glass again, just to watch Whiskey’s eyes narrow as he paces, and then because if Whiskey can be a complete fucking dick, he can too, lights up one of the joints he has with him and opens up the air filtration system between the rooms so the smell wafts through to Whiskey.

He gets about three really deep drags in and is just feeling that soft smoke wrap around his brain when Whiskey stops, scents the air, and loses his shit.

“God fucking damn it Jason,” he yells, throwing his hands up and stalking up to the glass. “After all this fucking shit we went through you’re still smoking that mess?”

“You mean the whole letting all the drug addicts die to teach them a fucking lesson mess? The mess that included me dying, you pig-fucking asshole?” Tequila asks back even though Whiskey can’t hear him. The air system will let the smoke pass, but no sound. Tequila exhales directly into the vent this time and laughs when he sees a trace amount of smoke whisper into the room.

Whiskey scowls and waves his hands around, which does nothing for the smell, but presses on like he heard him. “I wasn’t going to let you die. I had some antidote for you and was going to bring it to you personally. I just thought it would do you good to have a scare, teach how fucking bad those drugs are.”

Tequila just snorts into his beer while kicking his feet up against the wall and crossing them at the ankle. His new boots are mighty fucking fine. Nice dark leather, gleaming silver tips. They’d look even finer giving that sorry fuck in the next room the ass-kicking he deserves.

“I care about you, Jase,” he says, trying for that soft aw shucks cowboy look that always brought Tequila to his knees, usually literally. “I miss you.”

Tequila tips forward, standing up, setting down his beer so he can take off his jacket and hat. He paces around the room, unconsciously following the same path Whiskey kept following in the room in front of him, his beer back in his hand and the joint smoked down to a roach so small the tips of his fingers burn on the next pull.

He stubs it out on the sole of his boot, dropping it the bag in his back pocket to re-roll later, and lights the other one up. He’ll smoke three more sitting here until that fucking box Whiskey is prowling around looks like the inside of a bong.

A fist hitting the glass startles him. “Goddamnit. Talk to me.”

Tequila turns his back and breathes. He wants to. He wants to talk to him, punch him, strangle with his own stupid ass bolo tie, and kiss him. Instead he sits there and smokes the joint, drinks his beer, and thinks of all the ways he should cut Whiskey out of his life, and all the ways he doesn’t want to. He presses the button that cuts off the incoming sound and then leans against the table to watch Whiskey rage in silence.

“Jesus Christ, Tequila,” Champ says as he comes through the door, unsmoked cigar in hand, “I could smell that shit all the way down the hall. What in the hell are you doing?”

Tequila looks down at his feet. Champ always made him feel about twelve but in a good way, in a dad kind of way, and not the dad that backhanded you into a wall so hard your tooth chipped after it came through your lip and hit the wall.

“Nothing.”

Champ comes over and leans against the table next to Tequila. “Well, you going to offer me a drink or what, son?”

“Yeah, sure, sorry Champ.”

“I’ll hold on to that too,” Champ says, pluck the joint out of Tequila’s fingers. He sniffs it once, like he does with his cigars, and takes a drag. Tequila almost drops the beer is is opening.

“You think you invented pot?”

“No, sir, just didn’t think you went for something like that.”

“Once in a while, after the couple weeks we’ve had, I think it can be excused.”

“Yes, sir.” Tequila pops the top at the glass. Champ watches it’s trajectory and then sees the pile sitting on the floor.

“It’s not nice to antagonize him.”

“It’s not nice to be a fucking traitor either.”

“No,” Champ says, taking one more drag and passing it back, “No it’s not.” He watches Tequila as Tequila drinks and stares into the room in front of him.

“You’re being sent on a mission tomorrow. Should take about a month or so. We got word that one of Poppy’s business associates is moving up the ladder in the power vacuum her death created. There’s talk of him trying to do the same thing she wanted to, only this time he wants to lace the legal drugs, specifically kid’s medicine. Guess he figures everyone will be a whole lot more interested in saving kids than a bunch of addicts.”

“Sounds like he needs an ass-kicking more than this one does,” Tequila says, gesturing with his beer to Whiskey. “Good thing I just bought some new boots.”

“I was thinking that after the mission you could head over to Kingsman, help them out for a while, like we talked about before.”

“Trying to get rid of me Champ? I want to be here when you question him.”

“That won’t happen, Tequila.”

“With all due respect…”

“I don’t care whether you say it with or without respect, you ain’t going to be here. You’re going on that mission and then you’re going over there to drink tea and fucking learn some manners. Fuck knows I haven’t been able to pound any in to you.”

Tequila smiles. “They probably won’t either.”

“No, probably not, but it sure as shit will be fun watching them try.” He claps Tequila on the shoulder. “Good luck on your mission and your trip over there. We will do everything we can over here to make sure that Jack is a traitor before we do anything else.”

“If he ain’t?”

“Saves of the trouble of looking for a new agent.”

“I thought Ginger was filling in for him.”

“She is, and she’s doing a damn fine job. Plan on making her a new seat if this one,” he says, inclining his head to Whiskey, “turns out all right.”

“And if he is?”

“We have a new Whiskey and it’ll be a good thing you’re all the way in England.”

—————

A few days after the penis debacle Claudia rolls into Merlin’s room and proclaims “I have found what you wanted me to find.”

“My legs?”

“No, I thought you understood that I could not find your legs. More than likely they were eviscerated by the blast so that any small pieces would have been taken away by ani…”

“I was joking. Tell Dr. Steele that you need a sense of humor download as well.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“It’s fine, Claudia. What did you find?”

She opens her hand with a flourish and in it is the ring that he has worn around his neck for over a year. Tears well up in his eyes as he takes it from her.

“I can’t believe you found this. How?”

“I estimated your trajectory, the force of the mine, the weight of the ring, and then determined a search grid from that. I also have vision that allows me to search for specific alloys and substances. The platinum was easy to find once I had an area to look in. The ring, it is important to you?”

“Yes, very,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you, Claudia.” He clears his throat. “I never thought you would find it, I thought I had lost it forever.” Merlin slips it on to his finger since there was no longer a chain attached.

“I once heard Ms. Poppy say that nothing is lost forever because you can always hunt it down and kill it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, this is angst with a happy ending :) Well. A happy ending for most. Bittersweet for some.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required. 
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry remembers Ian.

**One month after Cambodia**

Oddly enough, Harry ends up living in Merlin’s flat. He tried living in a hotel for a while. He even spent two weeks in Scotland touring the new distillery and letting Champ drink him under the table. But in the end, London was home, and there were no available workers that could outfit a home with the security that _Arthur_ needed any better than Merlin’s home already had, it being the only Kingsman approved property still standing.

Harry scoffed when Eggsy told him that it survived because Merlin was considered support staff. Even as blank as most of Harry’s memories around Merlin were, he knows that Merlin was the point on which Kingsman pivoted. Killing him, even by proxy, crippled Kingsman more than the missiles that took out everything and everyone else. If Poppy had known who Merlin was she would have taken him out _first._ Maybe if she did, she would still be alive.

Eggsy, while he was in Scotland with Champ, went through Merlin’s belongings and packed them up. As far as Harry knows they are tucked away in the basement as if they are just waiting for Merlin to come home and claim them.

“Eggsy,” he says over the phone when he sees the boxes and calls him, “shouldn’t this go to his family?”

“Ain’t no family but us, Harry,” Eggsy replies, “he was an orphan, remember?”

And just like that, Harry remembers that part at least. He remembers Merlin telling him about it, only Merlin wasn’t Merlin then… he was Elyan? Yes, Elyan, but another name too, but he remembers bits and pieces of Merlin telling him about growing up in an orphanage. Harry remembers being so angry at Merlin for something, and then sad for him after.

“He’s gone, Eggsy. He’s not coming back.”

“You did,” Eggsy says, digging in his heels. “Let’s give it a year, and if he doesn’t come back, all sewn together like a bald Franken-Merlin, I’ll, uh, I don’t know, but I’ll do something with it. Donate it to the shelter he volunteered at, yeah?”

“Merlin volunteered at a shelter?” Harry asks, surprised. How much of this man who Harry knows in his bones was the closest person in Harry’s life has he forgot?

Eggsy sighs, just a little. Harry opens his mouth to snap at him, it’s not as if Harry had asked for these memories to disappear. Well actually he had, but no one knew that but Harry and Ginger, and Harry plans on taking it to his second grave. Then he realizes that Eggsy isn’t frustrated, he’s sad.

“Yeah, Harry, he volunteered at the LGBTQ+ shelter down by my neighborhood, had for a while.”

“Oh,” he says, and is about to follow it with _I never knew_ , but obviously he did, he does, it’s just lost. Possibly out the back of his skull with some brain that didn’t regrow. “Right, well thank you, Eggsy. Yes, we will give it a year if that will make you happy. It’s certainly not in my way.”

“Good, thanks, Harry.”

“Will you be coming back to London anytime soon, or Scotland?”

“Yeah, in the next week or so. Til and I are doing loads better, got a lot of our shit worked out, and I was thinking maybe I’d come see you and the shop, and then we could go see what’s going on in Scotland. Something I want to talk to you about, anyway.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Nah, Harry, it’s good. I’ll call you as soon as I know a day, yeah?”

“Yes, I look forward to it. Goodbye, Eggsy.”

“Later, Harry.”

Harry isn’t lying when he says he is looking forward to it. He is, to his surprise, lonely. Before Kentucky he was constantly surrounded by people, whether they were marks, fellow agents or friends, and again, he knows, Merlin was there too. He can almost feel the man’s ghost near him at the oddest of times further reinforcing the knowledge that he had been very close to Harry.

He pours himself a drink, still working on his tolerance which is now just a bottle shy of tolerable, and ponders the boxes downstairs. He could go through some of those. Perhaps there would be photos that would jog his memory. He walks to the stairs before turning around and sitting down. It almost feels like cheating to remember Merlin that way. Shouldn’t he allow the memories to return organically? Wouldn’t that honor Merlin’s memory better than trying to piece together their friendship from photos Harry doesn’t remember taking?

Yes, he decides, it would. He pulls his tablet over to him and brings up his email, doing his level best to forget that there are possibly pieces of his life moldering away in the basement. Answers to who Merlin was and how much Harry should miss him.

—————

Eggsy comes back to London a week after speaking to Harry. He and Til have more than patched things up and he is pretty sure they have scarred JB Deux — who now answers to the name of Deux-Deux, which Eggsy finds _hilarious_ and Til finds exasperating — with how fucking aces they are. Nightly.

Deux, and his new brother — Mr. Pickle II, aptly named Gherkin, who Harry gave to Eggsy after Cambodia — are at home with their mother, romping about the palace and pissing on priceless rugs no doubt, while Eggsy takes care of some business with Kingsman. Which means he wants to check on Harry and Percival, get ripped with Rox, and see if they are any closer to getting back to the point where they can do missions again.

Living at the palace with Til is a blast and all, even if her parents are still a little standoffish and Eggsy is about to start a crime ring himself if that means having something other to do than shocking the King and Queen by spending his days in the royal garages.

The _royal garages_ , what in the fuck is his life any more that that sequence of words is normal for him to think? He needs some normalcy back in London, and because Til was the best she understood. He plans to be here four weeks, long enough to get some work done and find a new place in London for them both. The palace was grating on her nerves as much as it was grating on his although he doubts they will be as free in London as they were before the missiles and Poppy. Her parents and her already argued, daily, about the need for body guards. Yet another reason Eggsy had to get away.

Eggsy takes the car that is waiting for him through London to the address Percival had texted him a few days ago. Percival had been abnormally quiet the past few weeks Eggsy had been in Sweden, barely responding to texts, even responding with a simple “Ha-ha” at some fucking sweet memes he had sent him, because far be it from Percival to respond with “lol” like a normal fucking person. Usually Eggsy got some long-winded diatribe on how humor was slowly dying a gruesome and painful death followed by links to some very vulgar, yet hilarious YouTube videos of stand up. No, _ha-ha_ , was so out of character for him that Eggsy was worried. Very worried.

When he knocks on Percival’s door, the man answers it wearing a full suit, bags under his eyes, and a sallow tone to his normally flawless pale skin that Eggsy distinctly does not like.

“Got you a new place, Perce?” Eggsy asks, looking around. “That was quick.”

“I do wish you would call me Alistair. Perce or Percival makes me feel like we should be at work. Would you like a drink, Eggsy? Whiskey, scotch, beer?”

“Right, Alistair.” He tries the name out and it feels odd on his tongue, but if that’s what Perce, _Alistair_ , wants Eggsy will make an effort. “Uh, tea?”

“I feel terribly rude, but I don’t think I have anything other than alcohol here,” he says as if anything besides alcohol existing had slipped his mind.

“A beer will be fine, I’ll get it. Kitchen this way, yeah?”

Alistair nods as he pours himself a drink. As Eggsy gets a beer out of the fridge, some fucking posh kind with hand-written labels, he looks around for evidence that Alistair is actually eating and not just drinking his calories.

“Yes, Eggsy, I am eating,” Alistair calls from the other room. “Roxanne, in your absence, has taken it upon herself to make sure I don’t blow away during the next high wind.”

“Somebody has to since I ain’t here.”

“You didn’t put her up to it?”

“Nah, don’t think I would have to, you being her dad and all.”

“Uncle, technically.”

“Right, yeah, because you and James didn’t raise her from how old?”

“Seven.”

“Makes you her dad then.”

“I suppose you came over to yell at me?”

“Nope, just to check in, make sure you ain’t pulling a Merlin and I got to hide your guns.”

“No, Eggsy,” Alistair says, looking into his glass, “I am not ‘pulling a Merlin.’ I am just grieving. I’ve done this before, and under much worse circumstances. Then I had lost a husband. Now I have a lost a very dear friend, an even more dear lover, and the possibility of more.”

“You should go see Harry, you guys can grieve together.”

“I thought of that, but I can’t bear it. I can’t see him mourning Ian as if he was just a close friend. I don’t feel I have the right to grieve for Ian in front of him even if he can’t remember who they were to each other.”

“I couldn’t get rid of Merlin’s stuff. It’s all down stairs in the basement of the flat. I know he ain’t coming back, but part of me thinks that maybe he could. Harry did.”

“A bullet to the brain is a little different that stepping on a landmine, Eggsy.”

“Yeah. It’s my fault too. If I hadn’t stepped on that dumb thing, fucking Merlin wouldn’t have either. If I hadn’t been so concerned with getting to my mate’s flat, I wouldn’t have forgotten the arm in the taxi and we wouldn’t be in the mess.”

“True,” Alistair replies because the fucker doesn’t mince words ever, no matter what, “but we could also be in a worse state. Poppy still would’ve struck, only getting all of us this time, and then where would we be? Dead, every single one of us, and half the world too thanks to that complete idiot they have in the White House.”

Eggsy huffs, not meeting Alistair’s eyes. “I guess,” he says, still not convinced, because that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? All of this can be laid at Eggsy’s feet and he’s been tripping over it for weeks, free falling forward without a care for the bruises he gets because he deserves them. All of them and a few more.

“Is that why it’s taken you nearly a month to come back from Sweden? Because you think this is your fault?”

Eggsy glances up and then out the window next to him.

“Ah, I see.”

“Yeah.”

“We could have used you here, Eggsy. All of us. Roxanne has been trying to walk the fine line of coddling me and letting me have my space. She’s seen me here before after James, so she knows what to watch for before she became truly worried, and she’s been trying to play aide to Harry while he is trying to put Kingsman back together again. I fully admit, while I have come when Harry called on Kingsman business, I have been, well, absent, for the past few weeks. And Harry? He’s trying to be Arthur with only half the memories he should have. It’s been a trying month.”

“I had to take care of Til.”

“I don’t fault you for that. If anything the past few years have taught us is that we never know how long we have, but we need you too. Both as Eggsy and as Galahad.”

Eggsy blinks back tears. He knew, he _knows_ , that Alistair, Rox, and Harry need him. He knows in the deepest part of him where Dean’s voice that has never quite left his head can’t reach that he is more than some grubby pleb they have to deal with now, but hearing it is an entirely different fucking thing.

“I’m sorry, Alistair. You’re right, I should have been here.”

“You are now, but for how long?”

“A month.”

“Excellent. I suppose it will take that long for you to help me pull my head out of my own arse.”

“Didn’t know it came out, bruv,” Eggsy says, smiling.

—————

 _In town, wanna grab a pint?_ Eggsy sends and waits for the response.

_Sorry, who the fuck is this?_

_Don’t be like that Rox._

_Don’t be like what? Like my best friend abandoned me to take care of my drunk Uncle/Father and our slightly addlepated King?_

_You know how many jokes I could make about the term Uncle/Father, especially since I have been in the States?_

_You know how many ways I could kill you in your sleep?_

_Same amount as I know, I reckon._

_Oh, you sweet dumb boy. You believe that. It will make it so much easier._

_So no on the pint?_

_No._

_Please?_

_You can bring me the most expensive bottle of wine you can find. Red, slightly sweet, and you can bring it to my flat, carrying it in your mouth, and crawling. I_ might _let you in after I drink it myself._

Eggsy rings her doorbell with a bottle of wine he dropped five hundred fucking quid on, which still makes him nauseous, and when he hears her coming he drops to his knees and puts it in his mouth like he was sucking a cock.

Rox opens the door and leans against the frame, looking at him. Her feet are bare, her toes are painted a deep red, and even though she is wearing yoga pants and a ragged Plan-B shirt, which Eggsy realizes is _his_ ragged Plan-B shirt the fucking thief, she looks stunning. He has missed the fuck out of her. Best not to show it though, don’t want to give her all the power in this interaction. Well, anymore than she already has.

“I believe I specified crawling. For that I would check your gag reflex with that bottle.”

Eggsy mumbles around the neck of it and she removes it from his mouth.

“What was that?”

“I said I don’t have one.”

“Aren’t you talented? Come in, the neighbors will talk if you don’t.”

Eggsy follows her into the flat she lives in, peering around because he can’t say what he expects. Rox is a dark horse and he has yet to figure her out, which he loves, but it makes Christmas and birthdays a right pain in the arse.

“It’s not what I expected, Rox, it seems a little tame,” he says, taking in the almost magazine like decor, gorgeous and tasteful, clean lines and dark accents. The pictures on the wall are modern art pieces he thinks, not that he knows fuckall about art other than what he has to know to make a cover believable. Lovely, of course, but very clinical. Cool but not cold.

“Everything in here came with the flat. I can’t decide what I want to do with the place, or even if I want to stay in it, so in the face of indecision, I ignore it and hope it will go away.”

“The flat or the indecision?”

“Both. Of course, I would have some time to make those decisions if I wasn’t making sure Uncle Ali hasn’t died of starvation and helping Harry be Arthur,” she says as she pours the wine. He notices he warrants a glass and takes it as a good sign.

“Sorry, Rox. I’m a complete shit of a friend.”

“True. But I will forgive you, this time. After all, you brought me this,” she takes a sip of the wine, “delightful wine.”

“Least I could do.”

She plants herself on the sofa, drawing her feet under her and gesturing for him to sit.

“So, spill, how’s the Crown Princess? Did you and her get everything fixed?”

“We did. And we’re good. More than good. I was going to tell Harry first, but seeing as you’re my best mate and all…”

“And you’re trying to kiss my arse.”

“And I’m trying to kiss your arse,” he says smiling at her, “I’m actually planning on proposing.”

She smacks him on the arm, hard.

“What the fuck, Rox?”

“You’re just telling me now?”

“I just decided two weeks ago. I ain’t even gotten around to telling Jamal yet, Christ, woman.”

“Don’t you woman me. You should have called the minute it skipped through that fucking head of yours.” She sips at her wine for a moment. “Wow, Eggsy, marriage? Aren’t we, I don’t know, kind of young? I mean I can’t even decide what sofa to buy and you’re about to marry into the royal fucking family.”

“Yeah, we’re young, but so’s a lot of people. I know I can’t picture my life without her in it.”

“Does she suspect?”

“We’ve talked about it a lot, especially after the whole Clara mess, but it’s just been talk you know, future stuff. Then a couple weeks ago I realized that I was thinking about us, in very real terms, in like thirty years. Then I knew.”

“But a Princess, Eggs. How are you going to stay a Kingsman?”

“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet, yeah? Plan on talking to Harry about it, see what he has to say. And,” Eggsy pauses and scratches the back of his neck, “I don’t want you to be mad about this, Rox, but I, uh…”

“You’re going to ask Harry to be your best man. I expected that, Eggsy. Besides, I am positive Tilde will ask me to be a bridesmaid. I just hope she doesn’t choose atrocious colors. I look terrible in salmon.”

“I haven’t even asked her yet. I’ll just let you ask her.”

“Eggsy, if I asked Tilde, she would definitely say yes. Women love me. Of course, I wouldn’t give her back. I’ve always fancied being a princess.”

“Like you need a title for that,” Eggsy says, laughing.

“True.”

—————

Harry greets Eggsy at the door looking more like the old Harry than Eggsy has seen him look since he was left in a loo with a dead dog over a year ago. Harry has found the time to replenish his supply of old man jumpers, his hair, growing back after the cut from Statesman is just starting to fluff up like Eggsy remembers from the pictures of him and Merlin. His smile seems freer as well, not as free as those pictures, but getting there, and seeing it eases something in Eggsy he didn’t know existed until it just released.

Harry hasn’t changed much from what Merlin had done to the place. The walls were mostly bare except for a few paintings that Eggsy figures must have come with the place considering they were nothing like the house in Stanhope Mews had. The modern lines jostled uncomfortably against Harry’s fussy edges but there were some signs Harry was there. A blueprint of the manor with Harry’s neat script and arrows on it, a book on butterflies and a sketch pad (though no drawings on the wall… yet), and the scent of tea and whiskey permeating the rooms instead of whiskey and whatever odd thing Merlin cooked now and then.

_Maybe if you ate some real food now and again, lad, you wouldn’t’ve stopped growing at sixteen._

Eggsy sighs to himself and once again hopes that wherever Merlin is they have haggis and computers, and not dumb fucks like himself that can’t watch where he steps.

“It is good to see you, Eggsy. Would you like some tea?” Harry asks, moving around the smaller space somewhat awkwardly, at home but not _at home_. Another thing to add to Eggsy’s tally.

“Yeah, Harry, that would be great.”

“Have you seen anyone else since you have been back, made the rounds so to speak?”

“I’ve been back in London for forty-eight hours.”

“And?”

“I checked on Alistair, Rox, and stopped by to see Jamal and Liam.”

“Saving the best for last then, I see.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Harry.”

“No Ryan? Have you two had a falling out?”

“No, he, uh, he didn’t make it out of V-Day. He was coming home from work and was caught up in the fray.” Eggsy’s sheet has so many marks on it with all his fuck-ups and should have’s that he thinks if he could touch it it would turn his fingers black.

“Oh, I do apologize.”

“It’s alright, we all lost people. Jamal took it pretty hard, but he still has Liam, and while he ain’t Ryan, they're good together.”

“I wasn’t aware that Ryan and Jamal were gay.”

“I don’t know if they would even label themselves as gay. We all just kind of go for who we go for, yeah? Ryan and him were together when we were kids and stuff, kind of became just friends as we grew older. I just meant that Liam is a nice bloke and all, but he can’t take Ryan’s place in any way.”

Harry busies himself in the small kitchen putting together a tea tray. Why the fuck they need a tea tray when the couch is literally five feet from the counter is fucking beyond Eggsy, but if it makes Harry happy Eggsy will keep his mouth shut. “So different from my time. It frightened us to label it, and now your generation eschews them all together. It’s refreshing to see. I remember I had the damndest time…”

Eggsy rushes to Harry as soon as he sees him stiffen and his words trail off. He places one hand on his shoulder while he turns Harry’s face to him with the other. Harry’s eye is glassy and unfocused.

“Harry? Hey, you with me?” Eggsy pats the side of Harry’s face, a soft tapping to give Harry something to focus on, something to bring him back from wherever he just went. Harry stares at him for ten seconds at the most but to Eggsy it is hours. In those scant few seconds he wonders about stroke, the possibility of a hole still somewhere in that brain causing a problem that is making itself known and Eggsy doesn’t know what to do if it does.

“Eggsy?” Harry says and blinks once, and just like that all the lights are back on in the house and Eggsy can breathe.

“Jesus fuck you just scared the shit of me, Harry. I thought you was having a stoke or some other old man shit I got to worry about with you.” Eggsy leans back against the counter willing his heart to slow down.

“Not to alarm you further, but I do that from time to time. It’s like a memory will force its way to the forefront of my mind but as soon as I try to see it it vanishes. Ginger said that it might be like this for a while.”

“But that’s good, yeah? Means you might get everything back.”

“Possibly, or I may just have a lifetime of blinding flashes of a life it feels like someone else lived.”

“You don’t remember what you were, well, remembering?”

“No, I was telling you what it was like being gay when I was younger and I remembered fighting or arguing about it with someone. I could feel the frustration, but then it was gone. I suppose, if it is important, it will come back. Now, we were about to have some tea, weren’t we?”

Eggsy watches Harry carry the fussy tea tray into the living room, the one five fucking feet away, and wonders if he wants Harry to remember Merlin so he will at least have that, or if it is best he never remembers what Eggsy has taken from him.

—————

Merlin wheels down to the gym that Dr. Steele had set up for his use while he mulls over the Dr’s notes on the two arms that he had made for Charlie, the first being the one that allowed Poppy to blow up Kingsman, the second being its replacement. The arms had been true works of robotic art, so high tech that Merlin struggled to understand some of the finer nuances, and had sat with Dr. Steele for hours as he lay healing in bed listening to him explain how his prosthetics will connect to the nerves allowing them to function as seamlessly as his original legs had. He had also explained, and Merlin believes that if his eyes could have lit up they would have, that they could also fit quite the number of bells and whistles into his new legs as well, as they had with Charlie, if Merlin would like to give them some ideas. Merlin could’ve kissed the Doctor because that was exactly what he needed to keep his mind occupied while he was slowly coming to terms with his new normal.

His new normal being that he, the Tech Wizard of Kingsman, was about to become partially tech, and his only living contact came from two beings completely consisting of tech. It's a fucking cruel joke considering how he’s spent his life. A nice big fucking cosmic laugh from a God that Merlin has hated since the first time the nuns took a rod to his tender skin.

In the gym, as he puts himself through the routines that Claudia had beaten into him until they were muscle memory, changing them up just enough to keep his muscles from getting used to it, his mind strays to Harry and Eggsy and how they might be faring without him. The first couple of weeks here in the compound he thought about reaching out, calling them, letting them know he was alive, but he didn’t know if he was ready to watch them struggle to accept him as he is now before he has even accepted it himself. Which he has, mostly, but there were still days when a black mood would overtake him and he would hide away in the labs, locking both Steele and Claudia out, unable to deal with the thought of anything non-organic.

It’s ironic he doesn’t want Harry to see him like this when Merlin would have accepted Harry back in any way he could have had him, lame, blind, senile, or missing an eye and believing he was an eighteen-year-old butterfly chaser in the body of a fifty plus year old agent, and Harry would accept him no matter what parts were missing. Or his Harry would have. Harry now, Arthur over a Round Table of one, might accept him back with open arms as a friend and a much needed helpmeet, or he might accept him back out of pity. He doesn’t know which would be worse, simply being a friend, or being a burden even though any version of Harry would be too much of a gentleman to admit such a thing. The issue is moot however, because Merlin knows that he cannot be around any version of Harry that isn’t his version, and since Harry is not his, and he did not die on this godforsaken fuck of a mountaintop as he planned, he will stay here until it is time for him to leave.

He has time to figure out where he will go. He has money in accounts not connected to Hamish Ian McClaggen that he set up in case he and Harry ever needed to disappear, and he has friends that will never die on him, never forget who he is, and that, and this is the best part, he knows where their power switch is when they get too fucking annoying. He pictures the look of astonished outrage that Dr. Steele would want to have but couldn’t since this face can’t move as Merlin powered him off, and that makes him laugh so hard he falls off the parallel bars he was using.

This is not the life he pictured he would have when he was no longer Merlin, he thinks as he lies on his back, tears from laughing so hard drying on his face. Even though he is no longer Merlin by title, he plans on using that name for the rest of his life as he was only even Ian to Harry and Alistair, and he is happy to let that die with them. Part of him still wishes he had died as he planned. Had he known what was coming he wouldn’t have put on that ridiculous blue bulletproof thing that Statesmen wore instead of bulletproof denim — don’t even get him started on _that_ — because it was what saved his life. But a larger part now, while not content, has begun to feel a resigned sort of acceptance. He’s alive, and so are Harry and Eggsy out there somewhere doing what Merlin had meant for them to do and continue to do when he stepped off that mine, and he will, when the time is right, enter the world again and do what _he_ is meant to do, whatever that may be.

—————

**Six weeks after Cambodia**

Harry comes through the door, tossing his keys in the bowl on the small table next to the door, shrugging out of his jacket and waistcoat, and crossing to the small bar on the opposite wall to pour himself a drink. He sinks into the chair next to him, grateful to be home and not in Scotland any longer.

He and Eggsy had been there for two weeks, leaving the day after Eggsy had visited him, seeing how the Statesman “gift” of a distillery cum base was coming along. Harry was sure it was coming along swimmingly but in truth he hated it with every fiber of his being even though he made the appropriate noises as he toured the grounds with Champ and Eggsy. It just didn’t have the same class a tailor shop did. When he said that to Eggsy all he got in return was an eye roll and told to _Drink your fucking whiskey, you classist twat_. Which Harry did because it was whiskey and it was in his glass.

Beggars can’t be choosers — and they are most definitely beggars currently — however and according to Champ it would be ready for use as a base of operations far before they finished the manor. Jason will arrive in London soon while a few Statesmen handlers and junior agents will go to Scotland to help them recruit and train a new crop of Kingsman. Harry thinks they will be on their, albeit shaky, feet by the end of the year.

Harry, upon getting back to London, had shooed Eggsy away, professing that he needed time alone, which was true, but also knowing that Eggsy needed some as well. Eggsy had been different while they were together in Scotland. His moods cycled from the loud, happy Eggsy Harry was accustomed to seeing to this quiet, sad thing within a moment. Harry just assumed he was still dealing with the losses of the past year. It made Harry almost glad he had so few memories.

Which reminds him of all those things of Merlin’s stashed down in the basement. Harry had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, to let the memories, if they could after what he and Ginger did, come back naturally. Only he was lonely tonight and he was sick of living in a space once inhabited by someone he was close to but with no real memories of.

Harry sips his drink, considering. If it is his story to remember, if he made the choice to forget once and then through no fault of his own was made _not_ to forget, then it should also be his choice to take the reins to remember the rest. He grabs the bottle, along with a second because his tolerance, especially after two weeks in Scotland, was almost back to what he feels is an acceptable level, and heads into the basement. He will not do this sober, and he will not come back up these stairs until he has remembered what he has lost. He only hopes that after two bottles of alcohol he still remembers what he remembered the next morning.

Harry moves through the first few boxes, opening one to rifle through the items at the top while taking small sips from his glass. He wouldn’t want to get too inebriated before he found the good stuff after all. They are filled with mostly clothes, odds and ends of tech that Harry thinks looks interesting enough to look at later. Merlin may have been a tech genius but Harry picked up a few things after being around him for thirty years. He places the parts in a small basket he finds along with the small tool set that was also in one box. He drags his fingers over the gold embossing on the front, _H.I.M_. Harry wonders if he knew Merlin’s real name.

As he works his way through the boxes, and the bottles, he also commandeers a few t-shirts that look familiar enough to make his head ache right behind his missing eye. He laughs at the fifty million jumpers Merlin seemed to own and then is surprised to find that he is holding one to his face, smelling it, and crying without actually remembering doing any of it. He wipes his functioning eye and clears his throat. Honestly, crying over something he can’t remember. He blames it on the alcohol.

And thanks to that alcohol, other than the odd crying, he feels quite good. He has that loose-limbed, rolling feel from just the right amount of alcohol that one gets right before the next drink makes them completely drunk. Harry is enough of a pro to know this and pours himself another anyway. Tolerance doesn’t up itself. After ensuring this new glass was just as good as the former he moves a stack of boxes out of the way to get at the next layer. He blinks, he might be a little more inebriated than he thought, because these boxes all have _his_ name written on them in what Harry knows is Merlin’s handwriting. The question is why does Merlin have what looks like ten boxes of Harry’s things? Harry might understand one box kept for sentimental value, but ten or more?

One contains a few of what Harry remembers to be his favorite suits, complete with ties, pocket squares, and cufflinks snug in tissue paper. Another are books he loves. Another, more suits. It thrills him to have these as incomprehensible as them being here is. The suits need to be cleaned and pressed but they are no worse for being boxed up for the past year. The books are also welcome because Harry couldn’t remember any of the beloved titles until he saw them.

Finally he comes across what he is looking for, a box of photos in frames and a few photo albums. He takes them and settles on the floor, cross-legged like a boy, with them on his lap and his bottle next to him.

At first he is confused as he flips through the albums. They are of him and Merlin, but they are not what Harry expected them to be. They are not photos of friends. No, the look that the photos capture between them is nothing short of _intimate._ And those are just the photos where they are not touching. The photos where they are touching are nothing short of _pornographic_. None are so crude as to be actual pornography, they are fully clothed, or mostly, but each touch speaks volumes of love, longing, sexual desire, mutual obsession. Harry touches Merlin like he might disappear at any moment. Merlin’s hand clutches Harry as if he can’t believe Harry is really here.

Merlin and Harry were lovers. Not only lovers, though, the photos show that Harry and Merlin, at least _that_ Harry and Merlin were mates in the deepest sense of the word. Soul mates, heart mates, blood mates, doomed to wither and die if they do not depart this life together. He pulls one photo out to look at it more closely. Harry is sitting on one of his garden chairs looking down at Merlin, who sits at his feet. Merlin’s face is tilted up at him. Harry cradles his head in his hands while he laughs at whatever Merlin is saying and love in both their eyes takes Harry’s breath away.

He flips the picture over. Written in his flowing scrawl is _Ian and Myself, 2013. Stanhope Mews._

Ian must be Merlin’s name. He stares at the name for a moment, thinking, forcing himself to remember something.

And then…

Then he remembers _everything_.

_Ian._

His lungs seize and his vision whites out for a moment before everything begins tumbling in on itself, like Alice down the rabbit hole. It’s surreal, like remembering who he was when Eggsy stuck a puppy in his arms and then threatened to shoot it. Only this time it isn’t shooting a dog he remembers, he remembers…

_The feeling of Ian’s lips against his in an alley and then in medical, both times feeling like home._

He remembers…

_Watching Ian walk away from him again and again, denying this thing that was bigger than both of them. This thing that couldn’t keep them together no matter how many times they tried and eviscerated each other through each separation, this thing that couldn’t ever keep them together but wouldn’t let them be apart either._

_Until they were together and it was good, it was better than it would have been before because they knew know what being apart would cost them, had cost them, and they knew this was forever. It was before, it is now, and that it will continue to be for every single life they will meet each other after. This is forever because_ they _are forever._

He remembers…

_He is putting away the laundry one quiet Sunday when he finds a box in Ian’s sock drawer, a box from the jeweler’s near the shop. Harry, being a nosy fucker he is, has to open it to see what it is in it, and what is in it is a gorgeous ring, custom if he knows his jewelry, which he does, and which, when he tries it on, fits him perfectly._

_Ian, the man who took more than twenty years to finally come to Harry, is planning to propose and Harry thinks he might cry. And he does, for a few minutes, because he knows Ian loves him, and he knows he shouldn’t need a wedding to confirm it, but he wants one even though he never expected Ian to want one as well._

_When he finishes crying over the ring like some maiden in one of his beloved Austen novels, he pens a note to Ian, something he finds fitting since they have been saying everything they can’t say with their voices with pen and ink since they started on the long road to becoming them._

_He places it with the ring back where he found it looking forward to the proposal, not knowing that in an all together too short of a time he will die and come back to life only to look the person he has loved since the beginning of time in the eye and look away not knowing what he was seeing._

That is the thought that brings Harry back. That Ian was there. Ian was there in front of him, close enough to touch, close enough to hold, and Harry never even _knew_.

His drunk mind reels trying to figure out why Ian never said anything. Why he didn’t come in Harry’s room and meet that _How do you do_ with a kiss so bruising that Harry would still feel it today as he sits on this cold cement floor surrounded by a life he forgot he had. After everything they had went through, why would Ian just let Harry slip away from him to chase butterflies instead of chasing after him?

Why, and it is like the bullet tearing through his head, through his heart, all over again, why did Ian let Harry look him in the eyes as Ian decided to die, let Harry give some fucking pitiful salute, and never utter one word of fucking love before he was scattered across the jungle floor?

Eggsy knew. Eggsy knew about them and he never even hinted at it to Harry. Not when he thought he was a lepidopterist, not when he realized he was an agent, not when he gave that now absurd speech about having no one. What went through his mind when he was shot? Certainly not the nothing he professed it to be to Eggsy as they shared martinis on the plane. No it was every moment he every spent with Ian burning bright though his mind as he said goodbye silently and heard Ian’s voice for what he thought would be the last time. _I was going to ask you to…_ Ian had said, and Harry wanted to say _I know and the answer is yes_ but the bullet had torn through his brain before he could.

Or maybe Eggsy didn’t know because perhaps Ian was fine after Harry died. Maybe Ian mourned for a small, seemly amount of time and then moved on. Perhaps Ian saw his death, and then not death but loss of memories, as a way to escape Harry and the relationship. Maybe he didn’t want Harry to know because he realized how much happier he was without Harry’s anger issues, penchant for drama, and his unwillingness to let Ian go. Ian had never seemed to want anything else but Harry, but maybe, after a year of Harry being gone, he found something or someone he wanted more.

Maybe Ian didn’t love him the way he loved Ian. Harry vomits violently to his side before he feels his throat close. His vision goes black as he struggles to breathe, and while he knows as if he is outside himself watching it happen that he is in the grips of a panic attack, of hysteria, of something. He cannot stop it. He forces himself to his hands and knees so he can crawl to the stairs because he has to call someone before he dies down in the basement, an unloved, unwanted man lying in a pile of memories, vomit, and spilled whiskey.

He pushes forward, the cold floor unforgiving on his knees and wrists, his breath in shallow gulps, the stairs further away as his sight grows narrow, and then hazy, and then black. He doesn’t feel his skull bounce against the floor when he hits it.

—————

Merlin sits in the lab while Dr. Steele and Claudia explain the proper use and handling of his now healed legs and the fucking lovely prosthetics that they have made for him, the three of them together, in the lab that Merlin has only begun to explore.

As they fit them on to him he thinks that his new legs are gorgeous. He based the design off of Harry’s ring that still sits on his finger, a weight that grounds him and reminds him that even though he mourns the loss of his original legs, and he suspects he will for a while, that the sacrifice he made was worth it because Harry is out there, and Eggsy too, living. The shins of the prosthetics are a heavy looking, but extremely light alloy that looks like platinum but isn’t, and the same alloy threads through the dark wood that makes up the calf area. They suit him, he thinks, the natural warmth of the wood that reminds him of the brown of Harry’s eye and the metal which reminds him of himself. The feet are the same metal below a fully rotational ankle joint, and thanks to the tech that Poppy’s bots perfected on Charlie’s arm, they both move like they are his own legs by attaching to the nerves that are present in his residual limbs. The attachment and detachment to the prosthetics are a little painful when the nerves connect and disconnect, but it’s momentary and the fact he can wiggle his metal toes, and walk like nothing happened, or at least he will with some practice, makes the pain worth it.

The shin area opens below the knee into two parts that slide up and out, and here is where Merlin’s real magic shines. Not only do they each carry a small knife within them, but there is a set of digital lock picks, taser, a device no bigger than two fingers that can hack into any computer system he comes across, and for funsies, a small flask in case he needs a fortifying few fingers of scotch. There won’t be much call for these items up in the middle of Cam-fucking-bodia, but they are his legs and he certainly wasn’t going to pass up the chance to make them _his_. Merlinator indeed.

Claudia walks around the room with him as he tries them out for the first time. He feels awkward in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was ten and his body decided overnight that he was supposed to be all legs and no fucking brains. He wobbles and the weight of his body makes the ends of his real legs ache.

“They fucking hurt,” Merlin says after he walks around the room and doffs the prosthetics.

“You will need to wear them every day to learn how to walk in them properly and continue to do the exercises to maintain the muscles in your legs. You have to realize that your limbs have not borne weight in over a month so there will be an adjustment period, and we may have to fit and refit the socket as your residual limbs continue to heal and change shape. This will be a work in progress.”

Merlin swallows the frustration he feels because he doesn’t want it to be a fucking work in progress. He is fine with the missing legs, or he’s trying to be, but he wants to get back to being fucking normal again, or what is normal for him now. His rubs the analgesic cream into his legs, trying not to hate the feeling of the smooth, rounded skin and be thankful that not only is he going to be able to walk, he will be able to walk as close to as he did before the mine. Many people face far worse amputations and aftermaths that he is facing now, and with far more fucking grace than his is. Hell, they had an agent who lost both legs above the knee and an arm, and he was out training new candidates within the year. Never heard one fucking complaint pass the man's lips.

“You are doing well, Merlin,” Claudia says from her place on the floor where she is rubbing the cream into his other leg. “Soon this will be past and you will wonder why you were such a pussy.”

“Pardon?”

“I have been watching funny movies to develop a sense of humor. Pussy is a humorous term among friends. An insult said with love.”

Merlin shakes his head. Sometimes he wasn’t sure that he made it off that mine alive because living with two robots on top of a mountain that looks like a technicolor 1950’s nightmare has to be the most surreal experience of his life. And he designed lethal umbrellas for a living.

—————

Harry wakes up on the floor, his head pounding, a crust of dried blood on his forehead and in his hair, and his shoes ruined by the puddle of alcohol his feet had laid in all night. He shakes his head to clear it, moaning when it felt like he was being shot all over again. What was he doing last night, he wondered looking around at the spilled bottle, the boxes ruffled and stacked with little care to them.

The photos on the floor.

Ian.

Everything comes rushing back. Thirty years of love, pain, anger, and need washed over him threatening to close up his throat again. He remembers the panic attack that took him to the floor, the questions he had as to why no one ever fucking told him what was going on, why Ian never told him.

He grapples with his mounting panic, forcing it back down inside until he is calm, until he can move and gently pick up the photos with the photo album. He takes them upstairs, spends a few moments placing them back inside the plastic sleeves, looking at Ian and wondering how he could have ever forgotten about him. How his brain could have thought that butterflies, while lovely, could every hold a candle to the incandescent joy that being with Ian gave him. How Ian could have thought that Harry forgetting about him was preferable to having the memories forced upon him. After he has finished crying again, he puts the photo album down, sets the flat to rights and takes a shower. As he is drying his hair, he texts Eggsy.

_Could you come by today? I have some things I wish to discuss._

_Sure thing. About an hour? Bring you some lunch?_

_Only if it comes in a bottle._

_Right. Bad day already?_

_You could say that._

_I’ll be there in thirty then, with a bottle._

_Make it two._

They would need them.

True to his word, Eggsy blows in thirty minutes later, bustling past Harry, two thin brown paper bags in his hands, and heads to the kitchen to pour them drinks.

“Hey, Haz,” he says when he walks by. Harry rolls his eye but doesn’t haven’t in him to give Eggsy the normal exasperated reply he usually gives when Eggsy calls him Haz to rile him up. He doesn’t think that he has anything in him at this point.

Eggsy keeps talking, glancing over his shoulder once when no reply comes, but keeps moving towards the kitchen, telling Harry about Jamal and Liam and Harry finds himself torn between the desire to request the hug he sorely needs and to punch Eggsy right in that classic jaw of his.

Instead he accepts the drink Eggsy hands him. Eggsy still hasn’t noticed the album. He walks around the small flat asking Harry about the book he is reading that lay propped open on the counter, pores over the blueprints for the manor Harry has tacked to the wall, still making the most inane small talk Harry has ever had the fucking displeasure of being on the receiving end of and if the boy doesn’t shut up Harry will revisit his decision _not_ to punch Eggsy straight in the jaw for letting Ian stand there un-remembered, un-touched, un-loved…

“Eggsy!”

Eggsy jumps and spins around, his shoulders hunching up in a learned reaction to a raised voice until he remembers who he is with and relaxes.

“Jesus, Harry, what the fuck? I about shit myself.”

“As mind-numbingly dull as your stories are,” a statement that doesn’t hurt Eggsy’s feelings in the least, he just sticks his tongue out at Harry, “I actually brought you here for a reason.”

“Who else would you call when you need some cheering up? I’m a regular ray of sunshine, me, sunny-side Eggsy they say.”

Harry breathes in and out once through his nose and that is what clues Eggsy in that this is not just Harry needing a drinking buddy.

“Harry?” Eggsy asks, looking worried, his need to care for someone coming out when he sees the shards of himself that Harry is holding together. “What’s wrong?”

Harry laughs, or sobs, and flings his hand out, pointing at the album that lies open on the table, photo after photo of two men so much in love it burns. Harry watches Eggsy’s face fall and he thinks he might hate Eggsy more than he hates himself.

“I was wondering if you could tell me about these,” he says, his voice cold.

“How much do you remember?” Eggsy asks, his voice quiet and small.

“All if it,” Harry grinds out. “I remember every moment, every touch, every word said in anger, and every single word said in love. I remember what Ian smelled like in the morning and what he tasted like at night. I remember what it was to lose him and what it was to finally gain him back. I remember everything.”

“Harry, I am so fucking sorry,” Eggsy says staring at his feet.

“You knew, didn’t you, you knew about Ian and I? You found out the night of our twenty-four hours together?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know it all, but you told me that you two were together, and he, after you died, told me some more.” Eggsy still hasn’t looked up and to Harry it looks as if Eggsy is shrinking before him. It doesn’t affect him in the least.

Harry sees red. His arm lashes out and grabs Eggsy by the collar of his shirt, putting him up against the wall behind him. Eggsy’s head hits it with a dull thud. Harry expects him to fight back, and a small part of his brain berates him for being just another arsehole like his step father, but the rage he is feeling overpowers any sense of remorse he might have.

“You fucking knew and you let me think that Ian was nothing more than a friend? You let him die _in front of me_ without even remembering who he _was_?” Harry is almost screaming in Eggsy’s face and yet Eggsy stays limp against the wall, his eyes trained on Harry’s shoulder.

“I wanted to tell you, Harry. I did. I fucking told Merlin that if he didn’t I would, but he wouldn’t let me.”

Harry tears his hand away from Eggsy’s collar and turns away as Eggsy slumps against the wall.

“Everything in my life that was good, everything that made me happy, has been taken away from me because of you.”

Eggsy bends at the waist and slides down the wall, a small sound coming out of his throat. “I know, I know,” he repeats. “I’m sorry, Harry, I am so fucking sorry.” He’s on his knees with his arms wrapped around himself.

“I was happy at Statesman. I was naïve and ignorant, but I was happy.” Harry’s voice is thick. He never planned ever admitting this but here they were.“I was going to fulfill a lifelong dream but you couldn’t leave it alone, you had to have _your_ Harry back so you brought me back.”

“Merlin wanted…”

“He must not have wanted me back enough since he was content to let our relationship die unremembered. You handed Poppy the keys to the kingdom by when you left that arm in the cab, and because of that I have lost a home that I, that Ian and I, lived in since I became a part of Kingsman. I have lost Kingsman as well. It is rubble. My second home, the manor, is being constructed from the ground up but it will never be the same. The floors won’t be the floors Ian and I walked on, they won’t be the rooms we fought in or finally became us in. My home will never be _our_ home again. You have taken the memories I could have had the comfort of there. And then, you took Ian. It should have been you on that goddamn mine but it wasn’t. I could have been here with Ian, but instead I have you, and I will tell you something Eggsy,” Harry says, bending down and grabbing Eggsy’s chin, forcing him to meet Harry’s eye. He speaks again when he has Eggsy’s full attention, his goal being to make someone hurt like his does. “You weren’t worth the fucking trade.” He stands and turns his back on Eggsy. “Get out and do not come back. Do not contact me. Do not write or call. If there is any Kingsman related business that you need to be made aware of, if I choose to make you aware of it, Roxanne will contact you.”

“Harry…”

“Eggsy, if you do not leave now I will not be held accountable for my actions.”

Harry does not turn as he hears Eggsy getting to his feet. He does not turn when he hears the door click shut. He can hear Ian’s voice in his head telling him to go after Eggsy because it’s not Eggsy he is mad at, only himself, and Ian, but Eggsy has always been such an easy target.

He does not turn.

——————

Eggsy stumbles down the steps from Harry’s flat.

_You weren’t worth the trade._

He knows he ain’t worth it, he knows he’s the reason Harry is up there alone, with the only thing he has never wanted, the mantle of Arthur, as the one thing he has left, but to hear Harry say it was like what Eggsy imagines the mine would have felt like had he kept his foot on it like he should of.

Harry, and Merlin, steady presences by his side not afraid to tell him when he was fucking up but also not afraid to tell him when he was doing something _right_. Eggsy never had that before and he needed it, fuck how he needed it.

Now he has nothing. Merlin is gone, Harry might as well be. He can barely stand to be in the same room with Alistair because he took Merlin from him too. He was stupid to think that he deserved anything he had gotten over the past two years. He deserves none of it, all he does is fuck it up and in the process fuck the lives up of every one around him.

Maybe it would be better if he was gone. Maybe then everyone could get some piece of a life back without him coming in and tearing it all to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If possible I plan on posting the final two chapters tomorrow and Thursday night as I will be out of town from Friday until Sunday. Worst case scenario, I post Chapter 8 before I leave and the final chapter either Sunday or Monday. 
> 
> [Inspiration for Merlin's legs](https://www.instagram.com/p/y4-9enNQWw/?utm_source=ig_embed) which fit with the ring I gave them before this whole mess happened.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required. 
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a surprise waiting in Cambodia.

After stripping Eggsy down to his soft parts and lighting them on fire, Harry decides he needs to speak to one last person.

Alistair.

The only other person alive who knew he and Ian almost as well as they knew themselves, and in some ways, he knows, now that he has his memories back, Alistair knew Ian much better than he knew Harry.

Being the gentleman he is, however, he cannot just show up unannounced or empty-handed, so he calls first. Ali sounds shocked at the request for a visit. Harry shows up less than an hour later with an expensive bottle of whiskey, and wine just to add some variety, and knocks on the door.

“Harry,” Ali says, “I didn’t expect a call from you.”

“I thought it high time I visit you,” Harry replies, coming through the door and handing the gifts to Ali. “I think we have a lot to discuss.”

“Kingsman business at this time of day? For shame.”

“Ali, it’s three in the afternoon.”

“I’ve always felt that business should be discussed in the morning, when you aren’t quite coherent yet, then you have an excuse for not remembering it later should you so choose.”

“I think the bottle I brought with me will be excuse enough, but no, it isn’t Kingsman that we need to discuss.”

“No? Whiskey or wine, Harry, what’s your poison?”

“Wine I think.”

“You only ever drink wine if you’re feeling maudlin.”

“It fits the mood, I think, since I thought we would discuss Ian.”

Harry watches Ali’s posture do the same slumping motion that Eggsy’s did, but he doesn’t think he will put Ali up against the wall like he already regrets doing to Eggsy. One, his anger that Eggsy bore the brunt of has burned away, leaving him empty. Two, he would be dead before he even got a hand around Ali’s neck.

Ali brings two glasses of wine in, both filled far beyond society standards, and frowns at him.

“You remembered. How much?”

“Everything.”

Alistair sits down. Harry follows suit, looking at his wine as he swirls it in his glass. “What a fucking mess.”

“For lack of a better term, yes. All of it.”

“I can’t imagine what clarity I can give,” Ali says before draining half his wine. He gets back up and brings both bottles in from the kitchen. “I assume we will need them,” he says when he sees Harry raise an eyebrow. “The Harry I knew from before would have had one of these drank before he even got here.”

“I’m working on it, but laboring under the impression you’re an eighteen-year-old lepidopterist and living in a padded room for a year destroys your alcohol tolerance. I am currently working on rectifying that.”

“Allow me to help, after all I had a start before you arrived,” Ali says, topping off his glass.

“You must not know me as well as you think you do to assume I did not start earlier as well,” Harry replies. The clink glasses and grow quiet again.

“What can I offer you in this Harry, that you haven’t already remembered for yourself?”

“I hoped that you could tell me why Ian would not want to tell me about him, about us. I thought that we were happy. He had bought a ring, I was going to say yes, we finally had what we both fought so hard for, and yet, when I am given back to him, he just lets me go. Was he happy to be rid of me, Ali?”

Ali stares at him, expressionless.

“Ali?”

“Did the bullet drop your IQ? Was he happy? Jesus, Harry, he was a _mess_. Eggsy and I spent more than one night pulling him back from the brink of alcohol poisoning. He refused to go to your house for weeks, and when he finally did, he came back the next day with a broken and bloody hand, refusing to answer to anything besides Merlin.

“He wasn’t eating unless Eggsy brought the food over and kept the fridge stocked. He was drinking enough that you would have worried, and one night we had to break down the door because no one had been able to get in touch with him for over eighteen hours. Eggsy and I found him passed out in the cold, in the garden, with photos of you and a gun. Apparently in the middle of a blackout he decided he was going to follow you.”

Harry turns his face away.

“Thankfully, he passed out before he could do it, but he almost died from exposure and alcohol poisoning. He had to give Eggsy the house because he couldn’t stand to live in it any more. After he got his own flat he got better, marginally, but better. He laughed once in a while, drank a little less, could say your name with good memories instead of bloody ones. Eggsy still watched him like a hawk, but even he loosened up. He was coping. He was healing. But he never even came close to getting over you. Ever.”

“Perhaps when faced with the one-eyed wreck I have become he realized that if he couldn’t have the old me back, he didn’t want me at all.”

“No, Harry,” Ali says, angry, “don’t you dare project your insecurity onto Ian to make him something he’s not. He would have taken you in any way he could get you. He was devastated without you, you can’t comprehend how much.”

“Then why? Why, even after I remembered who I was, but not who he was, did he let me just act like we were ‘jolly good mates?’ Why did he die without telling me he loved me one last time?”

“Eggsy said Ian forbade him to tell you. He didn’t want to tell you and have you reject him, even worse, have you fumble through a relationship out of obligation. I would assume, to Ian, that if you didn’t remember him, if you weren’t _his_ Harry anymore, therefore he was doing the finest thing possible, freeing you and possibly trying to woo you back once everything had settled down. Have you spoken to Eggsy?”

“I wouldn’t say that I _spoke_ to him. I yelled at him, put him against the wall, and then banished him from my presence. He has taken everything from me.”

Ali jumps to his feet and slams his glass down. “You did what?” he asks as he stands over Harry, his eyes cold and his gun hand twitching. “I love you like a brother but that is just too far. Eggsy is a green agent, he has been at the job for less than a year and he has already handled more shit than we did in our first five. That boy saved the fucking world. He came home and he held Kingsman together while Ian fell to pieces. He held Ian together. He took missions that were over his head and completed them with fucking style, and this was even before he knew if he was being allowed to stay. Eggsy is the best of us, and he is certainly a better person than you. Christ Harry, I could fucking punch you right now.”

Harry stands as well. He will not be _loomed_ over as if he was a child. “If it wasn’t for him, Kingsman would still be standing. If it wasn’t for him, Ian wouldn’t be dead. I would still be blissfully unaware of any of this and would do something I wanted to do since I was a child.”

“You’re twice the idiot I have always known you to be if you think Poppy wouldn’t have found some other way to get to us had Charlie’s arm not given her the coordinates. And Ian would still be dead, only by his own hand. But I tell you something Harry, we would have been better off _had_ you stayed in Kentucky and chased your fucking silly bugs because at least we would still have Eggsy.”

Harry finds that he is actually looking forward to the brawl that he feels is about to happen. It will almost be cleansing. “You think he is more of a boon to Kingsman than me?”

“I don’t think, I know, because he always puts the needs of others, of Kingsman, before his own. He never takes care of himself if he can take care of someone else whereas you’re shoved so firmly up your own arse that you can’t see anything but the color of your own shit. You aren’t the only one mourning, you aren’t the only one who has lost someone. We all have. Harry Hart, the only person he ever loved more than Ian McClaggen was himself. I’ll make sure I put that on your fucking headstone right after I put you in the ground if anything happens to Eggsy.”

“I lost the man that I love,” Harry says through his teeth.

“So did I you stupid arsehole, twice,” Ali roars back as he picks up his glass and throws it against a wall.

Harry takes an unsure step back. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was, I _am_ , in love with Ian. Not while you were alive, nor James, but after you died, I was there for Ian as he healed, and then one night when we both had a little too much to drink, we fell back in bed together. At first it was for comfort, and then, for me at least, it was more. I don’t think it was for Ian, not yet, he was still mourning you. I, however, realized I could spend the rest of whatever life I have left with him, and I would wait for him if I had to.”

“You fucked him behind my back?” Harry asked, the anger resurfacing. He was going to break Ali’s pretty white teeth.

“You were fucking dead. I wasn’t fucking him behind your back. Jesus, do you hear yourself or does your arsehole and your mouth just switch places the minute you get angry?”

“You should shut up now, Alistair, or I will knock you straight through a wall.”

“I doubt you can see straight enough with one eye to even get near me. Give it a try.”

Harry swings but Ali is faster and his fist catches Harry on the chin causing his head to snap back. He shakes it off and advances again, feinting right and landing a punch in Ali’s stomach. As Ali bends over from the punch, he grabs Harry’s knee, pulling it out from under him and sending Harry to the floor on his back. While Harry is laying there trying to catch his breath, Ali twists Harry over on his stomach, pinning his arm behind his back.

“Keep moving and I break this,” Ali pants into his ear.

Harry goes limp under him.

“Are you finished or should I kick your arse a little more to drive the point home?”

“Let me up so we can have a drink like civilized people,” Harry says.

“Are we, Harry, are we civilized? Or will we just spend the rest of the night brawling around my home?”

“Why don’t we drink some more and see what happens?”

“Fair enough,” Ali answers, getting off of him and offering a hand up.

Harry wakes the next morning in a musty guest bedroom with a bruised chin and extremely sore shoulder. His mouth tastes like the arse end of a dead animal, his head throbs in time with his pulse, and if he doesn’t find a toilet in the next five minutes he will have to piss and vomit into one of Ali’s atrocious vases. Somewhere his phone is ringing. He finds it and answers.

“Someone better be dead,” he says.

“Harry?”

“Princess Tilde, my apologies. How can I be of assistance?”

“Is Eggsy with you?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since yesterday. Have you not spoken to him?”

“No, and I am very worried. He will not answer his phone, Roxanne has not heard from him, nor has Jamal. He never goes to bed without calling me. I had hoped that you two had been drinking and he had just passed out, but if he is not with you, or anyone else, where could he be?”

_You weren’t worth the trade._

Harry’s heart sinks.

—————

**16 hours since the fight**

Eggsy wakes up positive that during the night someone had removed his tongue and sewn in the fuzzy carpet he remembers his gran having into his mouth in its place. He doesn’t know where the fuck he finally passed out last night but the mattress is shitty and it smells like piss. Christ, he hopes he didn’t end up in a smack den for fuck’s sake. He cracks open his eyes expect pain from daylight, nothing. He moves his body and realizes he’s only in his pants.

He fell asleep in a fucking smack house and got robbed of everything. He supposes he should be grateful that they left him with his life. And pants. Then he realizes that there is a chain attached to his ankle.

Huh. Not a smack house then.

He thinks back, as much as he can, to the last thing he remembers. The fight with Harry where Harry pulled the guilt from his chest and laid it on the table for everyone to see and then told him he was _right_. Getting pissed with some old mates in a bar, stumbling to the next, the next, realizing he lost his phone somewhere and being grateful it’s just a civilian phone, thinking he should call Til, remembering again that he lost his phone. A group of girls joining them. Blackness.

His eyes adjust to the light and he notices there is a bucket in the corner, a bottle of water next to the lumpy mattress he is laying on, and not much else, not even a window so he can gauge the time of day or where the hell he even is.

He opens the water bottle and sniffs at, and despite knowing it might be drugged, he drinks it because allowing himself to get even more dehydrated than he already is would not be a good idea. He leaves the bottle half full for later and does some light yoga stretches to get the blood flowing through his veins and muscles, and then slowly tests the limits of his chain.

It allows him a full circle of the room, or at least the cage he is in within the room. There is a distinct humming coming from the fencing that makes Eggsy believe it's electrified, something he doesn’t want to test for himself.

So, he has a half a bottle of water, his pants, a light but strong manacle around his ankle, he is stuck in an electric fence in a dark room, with no clue who has him, and he is almost sure no one even knows he is missing yet, or they are just finding out. He wanted to disappear but he really thought he’d do it his own fucking way.

He shrugs. He’s been in worse situations.

He bends himself into a downward dog. Something will happen soon enough.

Sometime later the lights flick on, blinding him and ruining the meditation he was in. And by meditation, he means daydreaming about the shape of Til’s arse and how she giggles whenever he drags his tongue across that spot where her thigh meets it.

“Mr. Unwin, welcome. My apologies for keeping you in the dark,” the man who has just entered laughs to himself, enjoying his shit pun. What a fuckwad. “Can I trust you will stay where you are while David slides in a tray of food and water?” The man, an American, is in his early fifties and looking it, not in the distinguished way Harry does, but in the way that hard living and stress shows it. His hair is gray and shining across the top, his skin is sagging a little at his jowls, but his eyes are bright and they watch Eggsy closely. His suit is expensive, but not bespoke, and he holds his arms in a way that telegraphs the guns he has under the jacket. Now Eggsy understands why Merlin made them wear their holster everywhere they fucking went for months. He don’t telegraph shit, thank you, and he wouldn’t even if he had a fucking rocket launcher strapped to his back.

“Yeah, I’ll sit here like a good boy,” Eggsy says, and he will, he ain’t doing shit till he knows what the fuck is going on. Leaping without looking usually means you end up smeared on the sidewalk. He wanted to disappear, but he doesn’t want to be dead.

The humming that surrounds him stops and David, the man carrying the tray, waits while the other unlocks three padlocks on the fence door. As they do that, Eggsy glances around. The room is brick, old, and about nine by nine feet, the fence a foot away from the wall on each side. The switch for the fence is next to the door, to the left of the fence door. There are no windows. Eggsy can hear murmurs, which he couldn’t over the constant hum before, outside the door. Guards then.

Eggsy sits as the tray slides in, the fence closed and the switch turned back on, counting the seconds between the switch being thrown and the hum. Three second delay. Once the men have stepped back Eggsy scoots forward and grabs the tray. Sandwich, fruit, three bottles of water lying on their side, and cookies sit on it. Eggsy places it to the side to eat alone.

“Not hungry?”

“I am, but I figured I’d wait till you filled me in on what the fuck is going on since you’re here.”

“All business I see. I’m Robert Demes, a former associate of the late Poppy Adams.”

Eggsy groans and rolls his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says. “Didn’t you learn anything from her?”

“I would like to think I did since I’m alive and she isn’t.”

“You won’t be for long either if you don’t let me go.”

“Really, Eggsy? Kingsman is still scrambling to find its ass with both hands. Statesman is picking up the slack. Who, if you don’t mind me asking, if coming for you? The old, one-eyed man who thinks he’s King? The girl, or her uncle?”

Eggsy almost flinches at Demes' familiar mention of Rox, Harry, Alistair.

“Yes, I am quite aware of who all of you are. Statesman is a bit more of a mystery, but Kingsman, now that Poppy has brought you to your knees, is much more transparent.”

“Who the fuck else knows?”

“No one, yet, but let me assure you, there are still quite a few people who would love to know where they could get their hands on the remaining agents, yourself included. I figured I would hang on to the information, an ace in the hole if you will.”

“And why am I here?”

“When Poppy died, her knowledge died with her. She, in her paranoia, kept every single thing she was working on in her head and on her servers in Cambodia, servers that connected to nothing in the outside world. I want the information on those servers. I want the robotics she was working on. And I want the money that is still up there.”

“Don’t see how I’m supposed to help you get that, bruv. I didn’t fly the fucking plane. Best I can tell you is that it was on a mountain. Maybe if you start looking now, your grandkids will find it.”

“But you were there, therefore someone has the coordinates.”

“Most likely, but what am I supposed to do, call them up and be all like 'Hey, I need to coordinates to that cunt’s base in Cambodia, me and a couple mates want to get up there for some parkouring and shit, go out on the piss, maybe knock up a few robots.'”

“I don’t really care how you get them as long as you get them.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me? Leave me here to rot? Let some of your boys have me?”

“Hardly a threat, leaving you here to rot when the women we put in your way told us that you kept moaning about wanting to disappear. No, we won’t kill you, but, and if you could come close to the fence for a moment,” Demes says, pulling his phone out of his pocket as Eggsy approaches. He taps an app and a video comes up on the screen of Harry. He taps again and it’s Rox, again and it’s Alistair, once more for his mum and Dais. “This is not a video, Eggsy, this is real time, this is what is happening now. The men who are transmitting this are also armed with long range, high powered sniper rifles. If you do not cooperate we will kill _them_ , or we won’t have to really, we could release their names and locations to certain parties and let them do it for us.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you myself,” Eggsy says, smiling. “And I’m going to take my time about it. Show you what we do to people who like to tell tales where I’m from.”

“Excellent. Something to look forward to, but until then I suggest you eat your food and spend the night thinking about what you are going to do to get those coordinates. Sleep well.”

Demes leaves along with David as the room becomes dark once more. Eggsy wishes he would have ate before as the reality of everything has made him lose his appetite, but he forces the food down his throat. Then he lays back to think.

By morning he’s barely slept and he can’t figure out a better way to get out of this other than going along with everything until an opening comes.

When they bring him a phone, a burner, passing through the holes in the fence, he calls Ginger.

“Hey, Ginger, how’s the prettiest lady in the States?” he asks, trying to infuse his voice with his normal attitude.

“Galahad, it’s still Whiskey right now. Is there something I can do for you or did you just call to flirt?”

“Now, Whiskey,” he says, and he wants to choke on the name because Whiskey is the fuck that put his electric lasso around Harry’s neck, not the lady who took care of Harry for months, keeping him safe, “you know I always want to flirt, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“Which is?”

“Do you still have those coordinates for Poppy’s base in Cambodia?”

“I do, but what do you want those for? I can’t imagine there is anything up there.”

He goes with the truth. “Arthur and I have been talking the robotics she had and how something like that might be useful to add into our weaponry, and yours, as we rebuild. Plus we don’t like all that stuff just sitting there waiting for some other fuckhead to find. Promise I’ll share whatever we bring back.”

“It might take me a moment to find them, I can call you back.”

“No,” he says. “No, I can wait. I ain’t doing nothing important anyways.”

He hears he pecking away at a keyboard for a few minutes and then she is giving them to him.

“Thanks, Whiskey. You’re the scariest agent in the whole crew.”

“Let me know if you find anything worth looking at.”

He hangs up and then pulls the phone apart with his bare hands, pulling out the sim card and dropping it in one of the water bottles.

“You little fucker,” Demes says, pissed off.

“If you think I am giving you a direct line into Statesmen you’re dumber than you fucking look, and let me tell you…”

“Do you have the coordinates?”

“I do, but how do I know you ain’t just going to kill me or my friends once you have them?”

“I have no intention of killing you. We need someone to walk ahead of us and sweep for mines.”

—————

Harry, Alistair, and Roxanne are in the back room of the shop, one that had been throughly soundproofed when it was renovated for the temporary location of the tailor shop, which was lucky as Ali is yelling again.

Ali is yelling. Roxanne is mentally measuring Harry’s coffin size. And Harry? Harry is letting them because he deserves it.

Since Kingsman is gone, they have no way to check CCTV with facial recognition for Eggsy. They’ve called Scotland but the tech area is barely on its feet, and while they might have something in the next twenty-four hours, as of right now they do not know if Eggsy has disappeared of his own volition, which Harry cannot bear to even think about, or because someone grabbed him, or he fell off a bridge, or any number of things that could happen after the terrible things that Harry said to him.

Alistair is still yelling. Roxanne has moved on to planning his funeral attire. 

The rooms quiets when a soft, but insistent, knock comes at the door.

“Enter,” Harry calls. Yelled at or not, he is still Arthur.

“My apologies, sir,” one of the apprentice tailors that Harry cannot remember the name of says, “a Mr… a Mr. _Tequila_ here for you.”

Harry under normal circumstances would laugh at the slight look of horror on the tailor’s face. Perhaps later when they find Eggsy alive and well, holed up at Jamal’s, who swears he hasn’t seen Eggsy but who Harry prays with everything in him is lying to protect his brother from what Eggsy believes is more of Harry’s wrath.

“Send him in.”

Alistair stops yelling and turns his back to the door, gaining control over himself once more, letting the red fade from his face, and pouring himself another drink. Roxanne composes her face into one of polite interest and tentative welcome as she looks to the door. Harry stands, moving forwards to greet Jason, when he stops, dumbstruck, as Jason walks in wearing a dark suit, bowler hat under his arm, umbrella, and fucking christ, black cowboy boots.

“Gentlemen, Ma’am,” he says, grinning and tipping an imaginary hat, nodding at Roxanne who actually smiles back at him, “finished my mission stateside and Champ had me come here as they are still working through some personnel issues back home. Said you guys might need some help with the distillery and all… wait, why do I feel like I just stepped in some shit?” He looks at the bottom of his boots. “Did I step in some shit?”

“No, that was Harry. He opened his mouth, shit fell out, and now he’s tracked it all over everyone’s lives,” Alistair says as he turns around, face no longer puce and his hand extended to Jason. “I’m Alistair, Agent Percival, and this is Roxanne, my niece…”

“Daughter,” Roxanne interrupts.

“Daughter, Agent Lancelot. Welcome to Kingsman. Or what’s left of it.”

“Um,” Jason says, shaking his hand while looking in-between him, Harry, and Roxanne. “Right. Nice to meet you?” He moves to Roxanne and kisses the back of her hand. “A pleasure, ma’am,” he says with a wink.

“I’m sure it is. Just to get this right out there, I like women.”

“That’s good. I like them myself.”

Roxanne laughs and sits back down, patting the seat next to her, which Jason sits in after he greets Harry and shakes his hand as well before pulling him into a hug. Harry steps back to see Roxanne eyeing them both.

“So, anyone going to explain to me what the fuck is going on? The tension in here is so thick I could eat it.”

“Eggsy is missing,” Harry says, ignoring the glare he gets from Alistair. “He and I got in an argument. I said some very hurtful things. Now he is gone and we don’t know if he chose to disappear or if something has happened.”

“And we can’t do anything to find him because this room holds the whole of Kingsman resources and the tech department isn’t up and running in Scotland yet, although they are trying,” Alistair adds. Still glaring of course. Harry is going to poke out his other eye just so he doesn’t have to look at the man anymore. Swear down as Eggsy would say.

“Let me call Ginger, see if she can do anything from home.” His phone rings. “Speak of the devil,” he says as he takes it out and looks at it.

“Ginger, yes, I’m here. Yes, I am wearing the suit… No, I ain’t taking a picture for Champ, Jesus. Listen, we got a problem. Eggsy is missing. What do you mean the plane and all?” Jason listens for a moment. “I’m going to hand you to Harry, he needs to hear this.” He hands the phone over. “She heard from Eggsy yesterday.”

“Ginger,” Harry says when he takes the phone, “I do hope you’ll forgive me for forgoing the pleasantries and demanding to know what Eggsy said immediately… Did you give them to him? I see, and did he mention just how he was getting back to Cambodia? Right. If you could forward those coordinates on to me, I would appreciate it, and if you hear from him again, please let me know. We will be in the air in a few hours. And yourself, yes, thank you.”

Harry hands the phone back to Tequila.

“Apparently Eggsy called Ginger for the coordinates of Poppy’s base in Cambodia. He told her that we wanted to go back, sweep the place for useable robotics, server information.”

“I doubt that was a trip Eggsy would make on his own. He barely made it through the flying classes he took, unless of course, he felt the need to try to retrieve Ian’s body,” Alistair says. Back to the glaring Harry sees. At least the yelling has stopped although he thinks it’s mostly because Jason is there and not because Alistair is over anything. Alistair likes to get a good head of steam under him and yell for hours, at least that was James’s story on the rare nights he came to Harry’s to visit, or hide.

“Ian is, um…?” Jason asks looking between Harry and Alistair.

“Merlin,” Harry answers.

“Okay. Well if we are going to Cambodia, I am going to change out of the goddamn suit, I feel like a fucking banker. It was a joke anyway.”

“Alistair, make the call to Heathrow to have them ready our jet, and make arrangements for a refueling stop somewhere halfway. Roxanne, you will stay here in case Eggsy, or the people he is with, attempt to make contact.” Her mouth opens in outrage and he holds up a hand. “We cannot all go, and while this is no slight on your ability as an agent, you must agree that since so few of us remain, and we are unsure exactly what we are walking into, taking the most experienced of us is the best course of action.”

Jason walks back into the room in his normal attire. Roxanne looks over at him and then back at Harry.

“But you’re taking the hick? No offense.”

“None taken,” he replies, tipping his hat. “They sure the fuck are, Miss Roxanne, or would you rather have to explain me to everyone that comes around for the next few days?”

—————

**36 hours since Eggsy has disappeared**

Eggsy thinks this is one bitch of a situation he has himself in. Demes and the skeevy fucks he has working for him allowed him to get dressed, under their watchful eyes, and now he was on a plane, gagged and trussed like a pig on the floor while the men drink and play cards. One in particular keeps giving Eggsy the eye.

“Ethan, if you look at him one more time I will personally cut your eyes out and feed them to you,” Demes says while tapping the table for another card. “I do not hold with rape, and if you do, perhaps you would be interested on being on the receiving end.” He lays down his cards. “Full house.”

Ethan’s eyes don’t find Eggsy again.

After what seems to a week but in reality is less than a day, they touch down on the mountain. They untie Eggsy, Ethan not coming anywhere near him, hand him a mind sweeper, and motion him forward with their guns.

He walks forward because what fucking choice does he have, guns at his back, mines at his front, and honestly, right now with no solid plan on how he is getting out of this fucking mess. He gives serious thought to just walking these fuckers right over a mine and solving all his problems at once. No one knew where he was so everyone could just think he flaked like the low class thug he is and took off. Til could marry a prince, Harry wouldn’t have him around to remind him of everything Eggsy took, although he does have to admit that he thinks Ali, Rox, and Jamal would miss him. And his mum and Dais, of course.

But all in all, no big loss.

He doesn’t though. He knows even as he thinks it, he won’t. Eggsy isn’t one to go down without a fight, so he won’t let this take him down, and he won’t let fucking Harry dismiss him out of hand either. Harry is family, and Eggsy takes care of his own, even when they don’t want him to. Merlin being prime fucking example number one.

Speaking of Merlin, he finds himself looking for a patch of suit or anything that would say where Merlin found his final resting place even though Eggsy knows animals would have gotten to him long before now, but maybe, if he would find him, he could take him home to Harry. Maybe that would mean something. He doesn’t even know if this is where they entered the jungle though, all the fucking green leaves look exactly the same.

After walking about ten minutes they come to the clearing before the gate. Eggsy looks around him and realizes the foliage is cleared out here, the ground under his feet is black and two feet in front of him is a crater. He is fucking standing on the spot where Merlin fucking died. Tears prick his eyes. He forgets about the men with guns behind him as he looks desperately for any sign of Merlin. Anything he can take home and give a proper burial to.

One of Demes’s men comes up and puts a gun to the base of his skull but Eggsy is so caught up with looking for stray body parts he tries to shake it off without thinking.

“You better keep fucking walking you little…”

Eggsy registers blood hitting his face before he hears the shot that blows the top of the fuck’s skull off. He hits the ground on instinct, looking over his shoulder as the other men drop within moments of each other. He eyes the guns now laying on the ground, wondering if he has the chance to get one and lose himself in the vegetation, regroup, figure out what he was up against. Maybe get back to the plane and get out of here. Eggsy had had a few lessons in flying before everything went to shit, he was seventy percent sure he could fly it. Thirty at least.

He inches his way back, ignoring how blood was soaking into the already dirty and ruined remains of one of his favorite Adidas jackets, ignoring the slime of brain under his fingers, ignoring the sharp rock that is poking him right in his _fucking cock_.

He is alternating looking between the gun and what was in front of him when he sees one of those girl robots roll up.

“Fuck me,” he mutters, jumps to his feet and goes for the gun. Her fingers grabs his collar and yank him back.

“Mr. Unwin, you will come with me,” she says.

“Fuck if I will,” he says, slipping out of the jacket, which she drops and grabs him by the hair instead. “You fucking metal cunt, I am going to tear you apart.”

“I doubt that very much, sir. If you will calm down and come with me, I have someone who is anxious to speak to you.”

“I ain’t going anywhere. Who the fuck is left to speak to? Me and Harry killed everyone here, including your goddamned maker. You got her strung up to some fucking machines in there. Some sort of fucking Frankenstein?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as calling me Frankenstein, Eggsy.”

Eggsy’s heart stops. It does. It stops in his chest and he wonders if he is going to keel over right here, right here on the very spot where the man who just spoke to him supposedly died, and wouldn’t that be fucking poetic or some such shit.

The metal fingers leave his hair and he turns. Merlin, fucking Merlin, is _standing_ there, alive and speaking and smiling that evil little smile. Looking like he just told Eggsy to run the fucking obstacle course till he pukes just so Merlin can have a fucking laugh. Only this Merlin isn’t wearing a jumper and wool trousers. This Merlin has jeans and a t-shirt on that says _Eat at Poppy’s_ with some bird holding a tray and wearing roller skates. This Merlin has bare metal feet and a shadow of hair on his head that would normally make Eggsy want to tell a Captain Picard joke but he can’t because he might be crying or something and he opens his mouth to laugh but all that comes out is…

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you and Harry fucking _cats_?”

—————

Eggsy follows behind Merlin shooting death glares at the robot gliding beside him and marveling at the metallic _tick tick_ sounds Merlin’s new feet make against the stones on the ground, and then a few minutes later, the linoleum of the diner floor. Eggsy flashes back to the sight of the lasso around Harry’s throat, the fight, and sorrow he had still been feeling over the fucker who is standing right in front of him.

Merlin steps behind the counter, completely at ease, and makes them coffee, sliding a cup down the counter to Eggsy.

“So, lad, you want to tell me why you’re here and why you had some arsehole pointing a gun at your back?”

Eggsy about chokes on his coffee.

“Why I am here? Why… when you’re supposed… what in the fuck, Merlin? Why _I_ am here? Why don’t you explain to me how the hell you survived a mine and why you have cute little metal toesies, yeah?”

Merlin looks down and wiggles them. “While I admit I am not always so fond of them, they are rather cute.” He smiles at Eggsy and sips his coffee. “I’m waiting.”

“Makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

“I wore that blue body suit thing Statesmen has rather than just being practical and making their atrocious outfits bulletproof. The mine had been affected by the spray I used,” Merlin sets down his coffee, unzips his jeans and lets them drop to the floor. Eggsy is too shocked to make a joke. “The suit, coupled with the defective mine, kept the blast from killing me, although it took care of Poppy’s men quite nicely. I woke up a few days later in the medical area of this place with what was left of my legs, and then I built new ones.”

Eggsy looks even though he doesn’t want to. His legs are attached to metal ones, metal and wood, and Eggsy has to admit they are pretty fucking sick, in a good way.

“They look like your ring, yours and Harry’s.”

Merlin grins. “They’re meant to.”

“You seem pretty fine with all of this, bruv.”

“I am? Well, I mean, I am for the most part,” Merlin says, pulling his jeans back up. “I have days when I am not, when they pain me more than usual, or the connections don’t work as they should and I end up tripping over my own fucking foot, quite literally, but I have always been practical, Eggsy. I can’t change this. I am lucky to be alive, and even luckier to have been in a place where I could build my own, so to speak.” He comes around the counter, sitting down on the stool next to Eggsy with his coffee. “Your turn.”

“The fuckers out there snagged me after I got piss drunk. Demes, he was the head of the group, wanted the robotics and information on Poppy’s servers. They were watching Harry, Mum, Dais, Ali, and Rox, said…

“Ali and Roxanne are alive?” Merlin asks, his face white.

“Shit, Merlin, yeah, fucking yeah they are. They are the only ones that made it. Rox made it to the panic room in her closet at the manor though she almost died while she was waiting to be let out. Ali, I still don’t know what he did really, something about his garden. Harry said he was like a roach.Merlin?”

Merlin is looking down at his coffee, his eyes were wet.

“Hey,” Eggsy put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. Merlin snapped back to himself.

“Sorry, Eggsy. I am just a little shocked to hear the news that Ali is still alive, and Roxanne as well. It’s good, very good. I suppose it is like finding Harry all over again.”

“Or you.”

“Yes,” Merlin says, wiping at his eyes, “or me. Anyway, you were saying.”

“Yeah, so the arseholes said that if I didn’t bring them up here, they were going to kill everyone, and I couldn’t figure out a way to stop it from happening, so I figured I would begin them up here. Maybe let the mine field take care of the problem, or even get my hands on the guns that were left lying about when Harry and I left with Whiskey.”

“Whiskey? Why was he here?”

“Long story, we’ll get to it. I still don’t understand who took care of you though.”

“Claudia,” Merlin says, waving at the bot who waves back from her post at the door, “and the other robot here, Dr. Steele, took care of me, helped me heal, and helped me make my new legs. Poppy’s tech is really quite amazing. You should take it back to Kingsman when you go.”

“I don’t know if I am planning on going back. Don’t think I am wanted much right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Harry remembered you.”

Merlin, who had stood up to get some more coffee, staggers. Eggsy is on his feet in a flash, hand at Merlin’s elbow. It would be his fucking luck to find Merlin alive and then kill him with a heart attack.

“Jesus. He _remembered_? Remembers me, him, us?” 

“Yeah, everything, and he’s devastated because he thinks you’re dead. He fucking told me off for not telling him, for letting you make me not tell him, and then he told me that everything he had good in his life was lost because of me. That I wasn’t worth the trade for it all, and then he told me to get out of his sight. So I did. Got fucking pissed, ended up in a cage, and now I am looking at a dead man. Been a rare set of fucking days I can tell you. Speaking of telling, why didn’t you tell no one you were alive? You can’t tell me there ain’t any way to get a message off this fucking mountain.”

Merlin hasn’t shrugged off Eggsy’s hand, and he still looks pale, so Eggsy doesn’t remove it either.

“One reason I was happy to step on that mine was because I had no desire to be around a Harry that didn’t remember me as we were. I figured I would re-emerge into the world somewhere, do my own thing for a while. Alistair was gone, Harry might as well have been, there wasn’t much left for me.”

Eggsy removes his hand at that, crossing his arms in front of him. “Fuck you, bruv. I needed you, fucking Kingsman needs you more than they every have. Fucking selfish, you are.”

“I am,” Merlin says, “and you’ll forgive me for it because I have never had the chance to be that in the fifty-plus years I have been on this earth. Both men I love had been taken from me and I wanted nothing more than to die. And when I didn’t, I wanted nothing more than to disappear. This was my chance to do so.”

“And the rest of us could fuck right off.”

“Yes, Eggsy, and I’m sorry for it, but the rest of you could fuck right off.”

“I get it. I’m sorry for being the fuck up that cost you your legs though,” Eggsy adds, looking at the floor.

“Shit happens, Eggsy. I don’t regret it. It got you and Harry out of here alive.” Merlin sits down heavily. “Jesus. I can go back to him now though, I can have him back. We can…” 

“Merlin,” a male voice says from the corners of the room, “it appears as if we have another plane landing. Another private jet. Has a rather large K on it.”

Merlin’s eyes go wide with shock. “I… I don’t know,” he starts. “Turn off the mine field again, Dr. Steele. They’re friendly. Eggsy, I don’t know if I am ready for this. To see Harry again. It’s all happened a little fast. Five seconds ago, that was all I wanted, now... Christ.”

“Let me handle it, then. I’ll bring them in, whoever it is, you can pull yourself together. Any fucking alcohol around this place?”

“Behind the counter.”

Eggsy folds himself over the counter, hooking his toes under the foot rail and grabs the bottle he sees. He pours a few fingers into each of their coffee cups. Merlin’s lip curls.

“There was still coffee in mine, lad.”

“Yeah? D’you care?”

“No,” he says before knocking it back. Eggsy joins him. “Again.”

They both knock back one more, Eggsy finding that the slight coffee flavor of the whiskey is pleasant, before he pats Merlin’s shoulder. “Let me go get Harry, yeah?”

“Yes.” Merlin stands and straightens his shoulders. “Take Claudia with you, just in case the Princess still has a fucking bug up his arse. She can knock some sense into him if needed.”

“Sure,” he turns towards Claudia, “but leave the gun here, yeah?”

—————

Harry paces the plane, all nervous energy. They still do not know why Eggsy went to Cambodia, or if he even made it there. There are no records of any plane taking off from Heathrow with the flight plan, but that doesn’t mean shit when it comes to Eggsy. If he went there, or attempted to, with some misguided notion of bringing Harry Ian’s body back he will kill the boy, right after he hugs him.

Of course, if he crashed and killed himself then Harry only has himself to blame. He would think after all these years, after all the damage his anger has done to the people he loves, he would learn to control it. Perhaps he should go back into therapy. No, he _knows_ he should go back into therapy. Drinking, however, is much more enjoyable.

He doesn’t drink now though. He knows if he starts he will be blind drunk by the time they touch down.

He paces, checking his watch again and again. They were still four hours out. This is intolerable.

Alistair sits and enjoys a drink with Jason while they play cards. 

“Harry, if you don’t sit the hell down I’ll personally hog tie you and stick you in the bathroom. You’re distracting Ali and making him lose. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m a grown man, Jason, I’ll thank you to remember that.”

Jason sighs and sets his cards down. “You’re my witness, Ali. I warned him, didn’t I?”

“You did, but much like most arseholes, he doesn’t have any ears.” Alistair lays his cards down as well, spinning in his chair to watch.

Jason stands and takes the bullwhip handle from his belt, pressing the button at the bottom which makes the whip slither out. Harry remembers the weapon in Whiskey’s hand and his eyes narrow. And, because Harry has learned nothing in the three minutes since he mentally berated himself over his fucking temper, he has to say something smart.

“I should tell you that your sometimes lover tried to use that on me as well. Still in a cell in the States, or have they disposed of the garbage?”

Red creeps up Jason’s neck. “Now, I’m going to let that slide because I know you’re worried about your friend, but that is some shit fucking manners if you ask me, Harry. I don’t deserve that and I would hope due to our past friendship,” Ali’s eyes slide to Harry and back to Jason. _Jesus fucking Christ, perhaps I should make a formal fucking announcement,_ Harry thinks, “you would be a bit nicer to me,” Jason continues. “So, I’ll say it again, sit down before I put you the fuck down. You ain’t doing nothing but giving yourself a damn heart attack.”

Harry eyes Jason, the whip, and Alistair in turn. He considers his options before nodding, straightening his cuffs, pouring a drink, just the one, and sitting down.

“My apologies.”

“Good boy,” Jason says as he retakes his seat. Harry glares at him.

“Pity he listened,” Alistair says before winking at Harry. On the way to forgiveness after all.

When the pilot announces their descent Harry calms himself by doing a weapons check and is pleased to see the other two do the same. He has his gun in his shoulder holster, a knife strapped to his ankle, a smaller gun on the other ankle, his watch, his Rainmaker. Percival had much the same but instead of the Rainmaker, he had a slim sniper’s rifle, while Jason carried a pistol, shotgun and his whip.

As they land, they notice there is another plane already on the ground. Eggsy made it here then. Harry almost hopes that they find someone _has_ taken Eggsy because he would really like to shoot someone, multiple times if the opportunity presents itself.

Harry’s hopes for violence are completely dashed, however, when they leave the plane to see Eggsy standing on the edge of the jungle waiting for them. His hands are shoved in his pockets, but other than being dirty, he seems fine. Harry keeps his gun out, pointed skyward, and walks towards Eggsy.

“Eggsy, are you alright?” he asks, his eyes darting around the foliage behind the boy, looking for any movement.

“Yeah, Harry, the fucks that brought me here are all taken care of.”

Harry stops when he is ten feet from Eggsy, Alistair and Jason stop five feet behind him, their guns point forward.

“If we are safe, Eggsy, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me what I asked you to remember when I gave you your father’s medal.” If they are not safe, Eggsy can say anything he wants.

“Oxfords not brogues.”

“Excellent,” Harry says as he holsters his gun. “Well, come on, Eggsy, get on the plane so we can get out of here.”

“Not yet, there is something you need to see back at the diner.”

“I saw all I needed to see when we were here last,” Harry says, not voicing the fact that walking through the jungle to get to the base in its clearing would feel like he was walking over Ian’s grave, or depending on the blast radius, walking over Ian.

“Harry, please. Come with me.”

“Very well, but we need to make it quick. I don’t want to be here a moment longer than we have to be.”

Eggsy leads them through the trees, all of them giving a wide berth to the small crater in the ground in front go the main gate. Harry sees Alistair pale and suck in a breath before he puts his eyes forward again and continues walking.

Harry is surprised to see that the area looks cleaner that he expected. He didn’t really expect the bodies to still be there, there were wild animals in the first after all, but even the large donut and other debris from the fight had been tidied away. Something was off and Harry didn’t like it one bit.

Eggsy stops at the diner entrance and turns back to face them.

“Harry, before you go in, there is something you need to know.”

Harry reaches for his gun.

Eggsy flings up his hands. “No, Harry, Jesus, you’re going to pull a fucking gun on me? I’m just trying to prepare you for what is inside, yeah? No one is in danger.”

“Then perhaps you should explain what is going on. What exactly is in the diner?”

“Merlin.”

Harry feels as if someone has knocked his knees out from under him. He feels Alistair grab his arm to keep him standing. If Ian is in there that means he had been alive when they had left. He had dragged himself in, hoping to find them and go home, but they had already been gone. Ian had died alone and in pain, and now Harry’s penance was bringing his broken body home. At least he and Alistair would have a grave to visit although he would have liked to save Ali from seeing whatever it was they would find inside.

Jason is quiet and he too steps up to Harry other side, not touching, but offering his support as well.

“Maybe it would be best if you and I took care of this, Eggsy. Harry don’t need to see this,” Jason says.

“What? No, it’s Merlin, Harry. He’s alive.”

Harry doesn’t remember pushing Eggsy out of the way as he strides towards the diner door. He doesn’t remember opening it. He doesn’t remember anything but the first glimpse of Ian that he has had since the morning of the day he left for Kentucky. He saw Merlin when he and Eggsy had found him that padded room in Statesmen, but he didn’t see Ian.

Now he does. He sees Ian standing there, a dark fuzz on his face and his head, in jeans and a t-shirt and silver feet. He sees Ian meet his eyes and watches his lips tremble. He sees Ian take a step towards him and whisper his name.

“Ian,” he says and then he is in his arms. Ian’s arms. Arms he almost didn’t remember and ones he never thought he’d feel again. Ian’s nose is in his hair and he is whispering watery _I love you’s_ over and over again. Harry’s hands dig into Ian’s back so hard he is sure he draws blood, but that is alright because if he is bleeding he is _alive._ He grabs Ian’s face with both hands and kisses him, sobbing as he does so. Ian is crying too and soon they can’t tell whose tears are on whose faces but it doesn’t fucking matter because their arms are around each other, holding so tight that they can’t breathe. They can’t breathe for the crying, for the kissing, for the relief of having something again that both of them knew was lost.

—————

Eggsy comes in the door second to last, behind Ali and Harry, who almost pushed him to the ground in his haste to go in, not that Eggsy blames him, so he sees what Harry and Merlin do not. He sees Ali stumble just a little. He hears Ali whisper _Ian_ just as Harry does. He sees his face go carefully, and with finality, go into that blank mask that every single Kingsman agent can call up at will. He sees Ali’s hand raise a few inches as if he was reaching for Merlin before it drops back to his side.

Eggsy knew this was coming. He knew that to give Merlin back to Harry would take him away from Ali.

Claudia glides over to him when he beckons. He walks up beside Ali and squeezes his shoulder.

“Hey,” Eggsy says, when Ali looks at him. “Why don’t we let Claudia show you, me, and Tequila here all the fun toys left in this shit hole, yeah?”

Ali looks at him, his eyes wet before he blinks once and nods. He looks back at Merlin and Harry before all three of them leave as quietly as they can.

—————

Harry feels Ian tremble in his arms. Or maybe it is him trembling in Ian’s. Most likely they are both trembling together. They have not stopped kissing long enough to get more than the other’s name out in small whispers until they are back together, sealed at the mouth, trying to crawl inside the other and never leave. Hands slide down sides, grip hips, trace the muscles bunching in arms and chests as they pull, hold, grasp the beloved body in front of them against their own. Each other them thinking that they thought there was no chance of doing this again, of feeling this again, and each time that thought surfaces it sets the entire chain reaction off once more.

Harry thinks that were they alone they would already be naked and writhing on the floor together, but Harry also knows that the emotional onslaught of this moment makes the chances of either of them getting it up, or letting go long enough to try to get it up, are nil. He is content with that. There will be time for the rawness of sex later.

There is more than enough time.

Nothing but time.

Forever.

He pulls back, gasping, resting his forehead against Ian’s looking into the eyes that have looked back at him since that night in the alley. He is thankful. He is grateful.

And to be quite fucking honest he is _furious._

But he just had a talk with himself about his anger so he is going to try to be an adult and use his words. _Try_.

He uses his thumbs to wipe away the tears still flowing down Ian’s face. Then he pulls out is pocket square and wipes his own.

“I am not sure about you, Ian,” and he is struck by how much his voice shakes. Not that it’s shaking, but by how it shows how little control he has over himself at this moment. “But I could use a drink.”

Ian looks at him for a moment before he smiles and leads Harry to a counter stool like he was leading him to a table in the very best restaurant London has to offer.

“I think it’s warranted,” Ian says and laughs, just a touch hysterical and Harry feels the answering hysteria try to rise in him. And then he remembers he angry. Happy. Overjoyed. Overwhelmed. But yes, angry, and he has never tried to rein in his anger before. It’s a novel sensation. His jaw clenches to cage the beast. Ian notices it and adds a finger to the three he already poured. To soften the words or to make them easier to say, Harry is unsure.

“Eggsy told me you remembered me and even then, even then I couldn't believe it was true. What happened?”

“Since my house, _our_ house, has been destroyed, I have been living in your flat. Eggsy, while I was in Scotland without him after we first returned to England, did a fine job of packing up your things and anything that might remind me of you. Following your orders I suppose,” he looks up at Ian who is studying the whiskey that is in his coffee cup. “I had a hard time remembering you, but I would get these flashes, like I would at Statesman until I… until I didn’t, and it made me feel like I missing something. After all, something told me that we were very close and I found it intolerable that I would not remember that. So the other night I went into the basement to see what I could learn about you, to see if I could remember. I found our photos and remembered everything. I remembered everything and until I walked into this room to see you standing here I wished I didn’t because I wasn’t sure of how I was going to live through a lifetime of moments knowing what I had lost.”

“I can understand that,” Ian says, meeting his eyes. Harry knows he can, he knows Ian understands that pain intimately, and that is what causes him to snap. He did _try_.

Harry drains the last of the liquid in his cup before slamming back to the counter so hard it cracks from the force.

“But you saw fit to let me go through it anyway.”

“We are doing this now? When we have just gotten each other back?”

“Damn right we are.” Harry stands, running his hand through his hair before facing Ian. “I want to know why you never said shit to me while we were in Kentucky. Why, even after I remembered who I was, you were fucking content to let me believe us nothing but friends, co-workers? Why you made the decision, solely might I add, not taking me into account, to keep _us_ from me? Not only that, but you kill yourself in front of me, allowing me to live with the knowledge that my send off to the man I love to a depth that is frightening, was some salute and not the words ‘I love you.’”

“I didn’t take you into the account? I did nothing _but_ take you into account,” Ian says, white knuckling his own cup. “When we found you you acted like you were terrified of Eggsy and I. Should I have told you, the butterfly chasing eighteen-year-old trapped in an old man’s body, that I was your on-again, off-again lover of over a quarter of a decade? That now that we were together permanently I was planning on proposing? Should I have told you, who didn’t remember me, who once you remembered who Harry Hart was, the same? Should I have watched you either recoil from me or allow yourself to be in a relationship that you did not remember and possibly did not want?”

“You should have given me the fucking option, Ian. You and Eggsy were so determined to snatch me back from what little happiness I had found, that I had sacrificed everything I knew, and didn’t know, for, and yet you only bring me back half way. You bring me back just enough for me to be an exceptional tool to use for Poppy’s destruction, for the rehabilitation of Kingsman, but not enough to make me whole, to give me back everything I had lost when that bullet tore through my brain.

“Or perhaps you didn’t want me to know. Perhaps you told Eggsy it was in my best interest for the memories to come naturally, for me to remember you on my own because you were hoping I wouldn’t. Perhaps that since I was no longer the hearty and whole man I was before the Church, you were content to let the one-eyed, broken man you saw simply slip away. Was that it? Was I no longer good enough for you? No longer the Golden Galahad, just a broken old man in invalid clothes and soft shoes.”

“Is that what you think, that our love, that my love, means so little that I would walk away because you are no longer the gorgeous twenty-five-year-old I fell in love with? Big news, Harry, you haven’t been that person for a long time and I still find you as beautiful as I did then, even more so. A missing eye and broken mind does nothing to detract from my love, it only makes it stronger because it is proof you survived, you fought, and you came back. Or, if you want to bandy ‘perhaps’ around, perhaps this is your own guilt that you are putting on me. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t want someone broken.” Ian reaches down and unbuckles his belt for the second time that day, dropping his jeans and stepping out of them. “Can you still love me when I am more broken than you? When I am missing pieces? Will you still want to fuck me when it’s either cold metal and wood wrapped around your back, or nothing at all? Will you recoil when what is left of my legs rub against yours in bed?”

Harry stares. He doesn’t want to, he isn’t proud of it, but he stares and accepts the way Ian had when he took of his eye patch in the bar to show them his eye. The same way Eggsy had not. He will mourn the loss of Ian’s legs, though not as much as Ian, because Ian’s legs were a thing of beauty, toned and strong with soft hair down them. He looks at his new ones, sleek metal and wood, and thinks that these suit him as well, they remind him of…

“They look like my ring. They are beautiful, Ian, truly, as beautiful as you.”

Ian sits and pulls one off, wincing as he does. Harry winces in sympathy, hating the pain that Ian is still in.

“And these, are these beautiful?”

The skin is red in places and Harry bites back the instinctual horror he feels at seeing a leg that stops far short of where it should. He comes to Ian, dropping to his knees and pressing a kiss to the rounded limb.

“They are beautiful because they are yours,” he says looking up at Ian, begging him to see the sincerity in his statement. He rubs his hand over the skin. “Do they still hurt?”

“They do, though not as much and not all the time. Dr. Steele, the robot you haven’t met yet, has assured me that it will pass. The worst is the fucking nerve connections engaging and disengaging when I remove them, which I do as little as possible. They’re waterproof so I wear them most of the day, only taking them off when I sleep or when I know I won’t need to walk anywhere for a while. Allows the residual limbs to air and heal. But as much as I appreciate the sentiment Harry,” Ian says, dragging a hand through Harry’s hair, “I don’t think they are beautiful.”

“They are, they are proof of _your_ strength, how hard _you_ fought. You cannot say that about my scars yet refuse to apply it to yourself.”

“You’re insufferable,” Ian says, re-attaching the leg. Harry hands him his jeans, watching him put them back on sad to see the beloved body covered once more. Time to uncover it later. Nothing but time.

And now is the time for honesty. Best to get it out in the open. Allow them the anger here so it doesn’t follow them home.

“You are wrong however, I didn’t fight for this. I decided months before you and Eggsy came to forget everything that was not the man who you found in Kentucky.”

Ian’s mouth thins. “What did you do, Harry?”

“Those flashes of memory I would have? I had them at Statesmen as well, flashes of my former self,” he waves a hand down the length of his body, encompassing the fine pinstriped suit, the weapons, the lethality of his body, broken but still deadly. “It was why they had to keep me in that room, locked away, because we never knew when it would happen.” Harry sits and pours himself another drink, offers the bottle to Ian, who takes it. “I went after Ginger, Whiskey, even Jason at the beginning, and afterwards I would have no memory of the damage I had done or tried to do. As long as they kept happening I was a danger, and worse, an unknown danger.

“It scared me. The man I was then did not want to be the man who would hurt someone, who would have the scars that littered my body, who would have memories of a church. I asked Ginger for a drug that would make that person go away, so I could be let out, so I could go study butterflies and never again be a part of a fucking life where I could kill people and walk away. She gave them to me and I took them. I took them and forgot about everything, even the things I didn’t know I was forgetting. I took them and I was _glad_.”

“And then we came,” Ian says, his voice hoarse and pained.

“And then you came and you brought it all back and I hated you both for it. But you didn’t bring back the one thing that couldn’t make it better, you didn’t bring back us, and for that, as much as I love you, and I do Ian, god I love you more right now than I think I ever have loved you before, but for that, I am still angry.”

“I can’t believe you fucking did that,” Ian says, draining the bottle and getting up to make coffee. Harry is glad of it. The emotions and the whiskey are taking their toll, and everything is just a little shimmery on the edges.

“Can’t believe I did what?” Harry asks, the anger returning, or resurfacing. Returning implies that it left. “Ran to a life that offered freedom from pain? I see you haven’t seen fit to remove yourself from this little paradise. You certainly didn’t see fit to tell anyone you are still fucking alive. No, you just allowed Eggsy to believe he had killed you. You let me believe you were dead.”

“Oh, that is fucking _rich_ , Harry. You’re going to throw Eggsy’s guilt on me? He wasn’t worth the trade, right? You had no problem turning that on him, gutting him once again with nothing but your words. You’re lucky he didn’t throw himself into the Thames.”

“Don’t you dare turn this around on me, this isn’t about me.”

“Everything is about you, Harry, it always fucking is. You can’t believe I didn’t tell you about us, you cannot believe I let myself die without letting you make proper goodbyes, you can’t believe I stayed here rather than running back to London to _you_. Have you thought what it fucking cost me, Harry, what this clusterfuck of a year and more, has cost me? Ask yourself how much it hurt to see you flinch away from my touch, to look at me and through me at the same time, not seeing Ian, only Merlin. The pain I felt when I found out about your relationship with Tequila, to know that someone else could touch you and you welcome it when I couldn’t do the same. I died every single day I had to look at you and know I would never have you back. And then I resigned myself to it. I decided that if you wanted to chase fucking butterflies I would see if you would allow me to accompany you. You may have not have been my Harry, but you were there and I would take you anyway I could get you. If you wanted to be with Tequila, I would ache for you from afar, but also be glad that you were happy.

“When I pushed Eggsy off the mine, that was another decision I accepted. I was happy to do it if that meant you and he would live, even though I would not, because by then, I realized I had lied to myself. I couldn’t be around you when you didn’t remember me as Ian, your other half. I couldn’t step aside if you fell in love with someone else, not like I used to, not after knowing what we had. It was easier to die with your memory then to see myself pushed out.”

“And yet you lived, and you still did not come home.”

“By now you must know that Ali and I were together while you were dead.”

“I do, and I do not begrudge either of you it, no more than you should begrudge me Jason. After all, neither of us knew that the other existed.”

“I said I was jealous of Tequila, not that I held it against him. Ask yourself this, Harry, before you fucking make some martyr out of yourself over how I’ve treated you, could you do it, if our positions were reversed? Could you watch me build a life with Ali every day, see us happy, in love, because I won’t lie and say I don’t love him, could you and live with it?”

Harry pictures it, which is easy since he has seen them together before. He remembers the pain of that, even then, and he knows he could not. He could never live with it. He would leave and never look back.

“No.”

“Then you know why I stayed away.”

“And would you have kept staying away? A year from now, five years from now? Even if I didn’t remember, would you have kept you from me?”

“Yes, because I’m fucking selfish and unwilling to put myself through the pain of not being able to be with you again.”

“Bloody fuck,” Harry says, dropping his face to his hands, “this shouldn’t be hard. You’re alive, I’m alive, and yet here we sit, fighting like we are those idiotic bastards of twenty years ago.”

Ian brings their coffee, sets it down and wraps one of his hands around one of Harry’s pulling them away from his face.

“We are the same idiotic bastards, just with more wrinkles and a few less parts than before.”

Harry laughs, small, the first laugh he has had in what feels like years, and presses his lips to Ian’s knuckles. “Where do we go from here, Ian?”

“I’m not sure. Do you still hate me?” He brings his hand that holds Harry’s to him so he can return the kiss. They are shy and unsure after the fevered kisses from earlier, the black emotions yelled out across retro tile.

“No, no. I could never, but I am afraid I am still angry. At you, at Eggsy, at myself, at the entirety of everything that has happened since I stepped off that plane in Kentucky.”

“I’m so angry I choke on it sometimes, over all of it,” Ian says, not meeting Harry’s eyes.

“I can’t be without you again. Come home. Come home with me. Whatever we need to do we will do it. Please,” Harry begs, pressing his forehead to their hands. “Please.”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very fast final read through/edit for this chapter since I have company, so there are things I probably missed, but I wanted to get it out. Plans are for the final chapter to go up tomorrow so you don't have to wait until I get back from my extended weekend. :)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required. 
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies are given, flats are decorated, proposals are made, and Eggsy gets married.

They spend the better part of the day packing tech and downloading software in preparation for leaving. Ian is happy to go and anxious. Accepting his new body was easy here away from the eyes of anyone that knew him, away from human judgement and expectations. Now he has to go back to everything that he was before. Merlin, a Kingsman, Ian to Harry, Eggsy’s pseudo-parent and friend, Ali’s sometime lover and then his love.

He doesn’t know how to be any of those people as the person he is now. Too much has happened. He doesn't know if the rocks he's been beat against has made him something else. The same for Harry. The same for Ali and Eggsy. All of them are different people than they were a year ago and he wonders after all that has happened, all that has been said and is still left to be said, time will allow them to find out who they can be together once more.

Anxious might be an understatement.

He notices Tequila, Jason, he amends, watching him and Harry, watching Ali watch them, just sitting back and watching, the occasional dip in his mouth. Not a jealous gaze, or a mean one, just figuring out who everyone is to each other now.

Ian would tell him if he knew.

He smiles at him now, to let him know there is no ill will. There might have been two months ago when he found out he had touched Harry, but he could hardly hold that against him when he was thinking of settling down with Ali despite the fact that he was not in love with him.

Yet. Not in love with him yet.

He could have been. He would have been if Kingsman wasn't destroyed. Had they not found Harry. He thinks they could have been happy until the day that Ian lost Ali too.

He needs to talk to Ali. He needs to hold him because he has Ali back just as he has Harry and he is so thankful he could cry. Ali deserves to either hold him back, or yell, or do what he needs to in order for them to be able to be the only thing they can be now. No longer lovers, but Ian hopes with a deep ferocity, they can be friends.

He has tried to catch Ali’s eyes throughout the day since he and Harry had emerged from the dinner, red eyed, still shell-shocked, but holding hands and unable to take their eyes from each other for more than a few minutes, but Ali looked away every time their eyes met. He knows he isn’t mad, but it’s obvious Ali is hurt. Ian is as well.

He looks over at Harry where is is talking to Eggsy. Their body language is awkward and stilted. There’s another conversation that has to happen, and it will happen if Ian has to pull Harry’s head of his arse himself. Lord knows he has enough practice.

This is not the homecoming he pictured even on the rare moments he let himself think about it even occurring. Everyone is walking on eggshells around each other. Ian almost says he will stay here and follow in a couple days just so he doesn’t have to endure the fifteen plus hour plane ride home with everyone all cooped up in a space smaller than his flat. The sheer forced politeness will be a nightmare. Maybe he and Jason can barricade themselves in the cockpit with a bottle. Let the rest of them fight it out.

“I’m bringing Claudia and Dr. Steele, if they want to come,” he says to no one in particular, not knowing he was going to say it until it fell out of his mouth. He crosses his arms and plants his feet. They do make the most satisfying clanking sound of finality when they hit the floor.

Claudia and Dr. Steele stop where they are, the items they were packing lying in their hands.

“We will come with you?” Claudia asks. Dr. Steele says nothing.

“If you like, or you can stay here. If you come, I will put you to work, but I will keep you running, and you can be more than just some robot fetishist’s wet dream, or a doctor for murders. But, as I said, it is up to the both of you.”

“Ian, you can’t be serious, these are Poppy’s creations. Who knows what programs are lying dormant in them,” Harry says.

If Dr. Steele had hackles they would be raised. “I assure you there is nothing of the sort,” he says, reminding Ian of the haughty way Harry spoke when he was angry. Ian almost laughs out loud, but he bites the inside of his cheek to keep it in. He is stern right now, very stern and Merlin-like, and a laugh would ruin it even if he sees Ali crack a small smile out of the corner of his eye. “However, if you require proof, I am sure Merlin is more than capable of finding these dubious programs you are worried about.”

“They go, or I stay. These two are the only reason I lived. They dragged my bleeding body in here, took care of what was left. They taught me how to walk again, pushed me when I wanted to be the stubborn prick we all know I can be. Claudia was even nice enough to find my ring,” he says, wiggling his hand and watching the surprise crawl across Harry’s face. “Your choice, _Arthur_.”

Harry glares at him. “Whatever you think is best, _Merlin_.”

Ali outright laughs behind him.

—————

The plane ride is made slightly more tolerable by the need to explain to Claudia what a fetish was, and then her explaining the inside joke, and Eggsy literally lying on the floor of the plane laughing so hard Ian worried he would pass out.

“Claudia, you are fucking aces, you are.”

“I will assume that is good?”

“The best. Now you and Doc come over here. Me and Ali are going to teach you two how to play poker. Come on, Jason, you can help.”

They went to the other side of the cabin. In reality they were only about ten feet away but Ian appreciated the illusion of privacy. Harry reached out and touched the ring on his finger.

“We haven’t discussed this yet, during the entire,” Harry looks at his watch and raises a brow, “ten hours we have been back together, but will you be coming back to your flat? If you would like to be alone, I could leave, or you could stay with Alistair,” Harry offers.

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead. I might still be in shock. After all, I didn’t wake up this morning intending to kill the men that were holding Eggsy captive and then seeing you walk through the door. I’ve had a rather emotional day,” he says, smiling at Harry.

“Too bad we can’t let off a little steam.”

“Yes. It is.”

Harry is quiet and Ian realizes he still hasn’t answered the question.

“I don’t want to let you out of my sight, Harry, but I wonder if a little distance isn’t good for us, at least while we settle back into our lives, ones much different than our previous one.”

“Right, of course,” Harry says, his face closing off like it has with Ian every single time he opened his mouth and hurt him.

“I’m not saying that’s what I want. I just don’t to fuck up our reunion. We have been through hell, all of us,” he says, his eyes going to the group a few feet away, “and I don’t know about you, but I didn’t handle my hell well at all. I’m still not. I have nightmares about the mine, about it being you or Eggsy on it this time. I am fucking angry about my goddamn legs, and now I don’t have that nice little bubble in Cambodia that I was safe and unknown in, I’ll have more angry days. And god only knows what is going around in your half mad head.” Harry laughs and takes Ian’s hand.

“Anger, happiness, disbelief, sorrow, and a whole slew of other things that I keep myself far to inebriated to realize.”

“Nice to know some things haven’t changed.”

“Just so. I do not want to be parted from you, Ian, but I also know, with our history, that sometimes we can be the absolute worst things for each other.”

Ian doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

“There is a small apartment above the new shop, we installed a temporary one next to Berry Brothers. I can stay there while we navigate this.”

“I’m going to speak to Ali, Harry.”

“I expect you to. He deserves no less if for nothing else than taking care of you while I was away. I also trust you implicitly, Ian. I stopped being jealous of the bond you two share a long time ago. After all, didn’t I suggest you two rekindle your romance if I was to die? I died and you did. I know who you love and how you love them.”

“And you are smug in knowing you’re at the top of the list.”

“I am.”

“I was hoping the ego would have stayed forgotten.”

“It’s hardly ego, Ian. You humped my leg every time I stepped in the room. It was embarrassing.”

“That’s a laugh coming from a man who,” Ian lowers his voice, “begged for my cock every chance he got.”

“You were inexperienced. I hoped it would give you confidence,” Harry replies, examining his immaculate nails.

“Experienced enough to make you scream.”

“It was that or laugh.”

Ian leans into Harry’s space, his face only inches away from Harry’s. “When all of this settles, I’m going to fuck you so hard, so throughly, that you won’t even be able to scream any more.”

Harry leans forward and places one small, chaste kiss against Ian’s lips. He grins that same grin that makes Ian’s knees, well knee in the singular now, go weak. “Darling, I am looking forward to it.”

—————

It has been three days since they had arrived back in London. Harry has moved into the flat above the shop. It’s small, but cozy, and frumpy enough that Harry actually feels at home in it. Ian’s flat had been too much like Ian, too much tech and not enough toile in his opinion. Harry is fine with their styles mixing once more as long as Ian keeps his in the office, where it belongs.

He has seen Ian all three days. They visited Viviane, who survived the attack on Kingsman since she had been out of the country, and while she was not willing to come back to Kingsman, just one more line of Harry’s to do’s, she will see them together and separately. Even without the Kingsman component, bringing a new therapist up to speed on his and Ian’s history would be a nightmare.

Things have been good, but it has only been a few days. Harry knows the worst is far from over.

He is just settling in with a pot of tea, a comfortable jumper, and a book for the evening when someone knocks at his door. He is hoping it is Ian. Instead it is Eggsy. The worst is definitely far from over.

He hadn’t been avoiding Eggsy, but he hadn’t sought him out either. Harry knows what an arsehole he is, and he would think after all these years he would be more comfortable in admitting out loud.

He isn’t.

“Eggsy, come in,” he says, moving to the side of the doorway to allow Eggsy to pass, “would you like some tea?”

“Nah, Harry, thanks,” Eggsy replies, not looking him in the eye. His jeans are rumpled although Harry thinks that’s by design. He is wearing those god awful trainers with wings on them, and a black and gold hoodie. He could easily be the same boy Harry dragged out of Holborn what feels like a lifetime ago. Almost, but this Eggsy has a shoulder holster on and waits to be invited to sit before he does.

“I’m going back to Sweden tomorrow and wanted to come by and say I am sorry again, you know, for all of it. And I hope that you will let me stay a Kingsman because… _fuck_ ,” his voice breaks as he sits and stares at the floor between his feet, “because other than Jamal, mum and Dais, you posh twats are the only family I have and I couldn’t bear it if I couldn’t be around you anymore, yeah? You and Merlin are like my dads and … and…”

Harry is, by far, the most exceptional arsehole the world has ever had the misfortune of having walk upon its soil. He deserves nothing less than to be banished to some cabin in the fucking arctic and made to live with himself, and only himself, for the rest of his miserable life. He doesn’t deserve the people he has, least of all the gold-hearted boy who comes to apologize to him when he should be the one groveling at Eggsy’s feet.

So he does that. He lowers himself without thinking because Eggsy deserves it. He needs to know that Harry is the one who is wrong.

Harry goes to his knees in front of where Eggsy sits, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and handing it to him, which makes Eggsy laugh.

“Of course you have a fucking monogrammed handkerchief even when you’re sitting around doing nothing.”

“A gentleman is always prepared, Eggsy.” That earns him another, smaller laugh. He takes Eggsy by the shoulders and waits until he is composed enough to meet his eyes. “You have nothing to apologize for, Eggsy, nothing. You kept Ian alive when I wasn’t here to. You honored what you thought was his last wishes to spare me pain. You did what you thought was best for everyone involved. _I_ am sorry. I am sorry for repaying your work with nothing but pain and anger. I am sorry that I blamed all of this on you when you were the one working so hard to keep everything together, including yourself, and I wasn’t there to help you.”

“I’m the reason everything got blown up, that everyone got blown up. All them deaths are on me, Harry. Yours and Merlin’s and Igraine’s and everyone else.”

Harry pulls Eggsy into his arms. “No, no you are not. My death was my own, Merlin’s as well, and everyone knows what they are signing up for when they work for Kingsman. You had no way of knowing what that arm could do. Even Merlin didn’t think to get it out of the car. You are an exceptional agent, better than I could have ever dreamed of you being. There is a place for you here as long as you want it, and even when you no longer do, Ian and I, and Alistair and Roxanne, will always be your family. Nothing will ever take that away from you or us.”

Eggsy sobs into his shoulder, clutching at Harry’s back, the force shaking them both.

“I hope that you will be able to forgive me, Eggsy. I wish I could say it won’t happen again, but as you well know, my anger burns hot and destroys everything in its path, but perhaps next time, instead of listening to me shit out of my mouth as I have been told multiple time I do, you will just punch me instead.”

“Not polite to hit old people, Harry,” Eggsy says, snuffling now.

“Do you forgive me, Eggsy? Even though I do not deserve it?”

“I don’t know, depends,” Eggsy says, wiping his face with the linen in his hands.

“On?”

“If you’ll be my best man or not.”

—————

 _I think it’s time we talked, don’t you?_ Merlin hesitates for a good five minutes before hitting send on the text and then spends two hours waiting for the reply.

 _We should. I don’t want to, but yes, we should. Come by tonight, say seven? Bring alcohol,_ Ali finally replies.

_You don’t have any?_

_I don’t have enough._

Merlin knocks on the unfamiliar door on time, two wine bottles in his hand because he thinks that anything harder might be a bad idea. Ali, dressed causally in dark jeans and a light blue jumper that Ian does not notice brings out his eyes, opens the door and lets him in, taking the bottles from him.

“Very nice, Ian,” he says as he goes into the kitchen to open one.

Ian looks around the flat. It feels lived although Ali could not have been here longer than a couple months, less if one counted the time he must have spent in the hospital.

“You certainly found a place quickly. It feels as if you have been here for years.” Ian said as he walked around the room. Ali’s favorite books were on the shelved, artwork that resembled the pieces in his old flat hung on the walls, and interspersed throughout the books were pictures of Ali, Roxanne and James, even some of Harry and Ian.

“I didn’t have to find it, I bought it a few years before James died. I had planned on him and I moving here when Roxanne was ready to have her own place after University. He died without seeing it. After the attack I simply came here once they released me from hospital. Roxanne found a flat for herself. Can’t have her uncle, or as she now demands, her father, crimping her style with his stuffy ways.” Ali comes in and hands him a glass of the wine.

“Smart girl. You’d probably interrogate any woman that was brave enough to darken the door.”

“Like we wouldn’t run a complete background check the moment Roxanne met someone.”

“True.”

"Eggsy mentioned that she is seeing Amelia from the Berlin office, so one less thing on the list.”

Ian puts up with a few more minutes of grating small talk before he sets his glass down.

“Ali, we’ve spent the past two months thinking the other was dead, can I not hug you for fuck’s sake?”

“I… I'm trying to make this easier for both of us, Ian.”

“A hug will make it harder?”

“For me it will, yes.”

Ian drains his glass. “Is this the end for us? We won’t even be able to be friends? We still have to work together, you know.”

“I hope we can be friends, I do, but I don’t even feel sure about that. Christ, I don’t know what I feel period. Happiness that you’re alive, joy really. The same for Harry. You know Roxanne… sit, I’ll get us some more wine.”

“Just bring the bottles.”

“Right. What was I saying? Oh, Roxanne and I pulled our guns on Harry and Eggsy when we saw them. I hid it well, but I was so shocked I thought I would piss myself, and then they told me about you. It almost felt like losing James all over again.” He comes back in to refill their glasses and sits.

“Ali…”

Ali ignores him, swirling the wine in his glass. “I’m finding it hard to neatly parcel everything I am feeling. The happiness. The jealousy. Jealousy that you get the second chance I never had, that both of you do. I would give anything to find out someone had sewn James back together and was keeping him in some covert facility somewhere, anything, and I would be a fucking liar if I said I wasn’t damn jealous that Harry has resurrected himself just in time to take you from me. I’m even a little pissed you kept yourself from me, staying up there in Cambodia.”

“I couldn’t be around Harry, and I didn’t know you were alive.”

“You could have found out.”

“You’re right. It was just easier to hide away up there and lick my wounds and hide from the pain of Harry not knowing who I am or the pity in people’s eyes when they saw me as I am now.”

“Cowardly. Not a word I would have ever thought I would associate with you.”

“Nor I you.”

“I do beg your pardon?”

“You say that pulling away from me will make it easier on both of us. It might make it easier on you, but it certainly isn’t easy on me.”

“That’s because you don’t have to sit here and watch the man you're in love run off with his fucking soul mate.”

“Ali, we can get through this.”

“We can, Ian, and we will, but it’s going to take a little while for me. I meant what I said, I fell in love with you before Kingsman got wiped off the map. I didn’t plan on it, I didn’t even know I could fall in love with anyone that wasn’t James, and I knew you weren’t in love with me…”

“I do love you though, Ali, I do.”

“I know, Ian. And I was willing to wait for you to fall in love with me as well. I knew I could never be Harry, but I thought, with time, we could have made a go of it.”

“I believe we could have.”

“But now Harry is here.”

“Yes, he is.”

“How’s that going? Living together again, I mean, after being on your own for a year.”

“We’re not. I am back in my flat, and he is staying above the shop for right now.”

Ali goggles at him, mouth open, eyes wide, and Ian takes another drink of wine to keep from laughing in his face, in a good-natured way, but still.

“We decided that we need time to settle in to who we are now, and who we will be together. He’s lost an eye, and a lot of memories. He has migraines, blinding ones, and I’ve noticed, whether he has or not, slight memory making issues. Plus he sees butterflies now and again.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, not at all. He sees phantom butterflies, has ever since we brought him back. It’s nothing I think won’t resolve itself, but it makes me happy that he will take the Arthur position and not going into the field.”

“Do you, and I ask this a friend and an agent, think he’s fit to serve as Arthur?”

Ian takes no offense, it’s a valid question and one he would ask if he wasn’t Ian and Harry wasn’t Harry. It's one he will ask himself regularly as Merlin.

“I do, and if I time comes that I don’t, I will let the Table know.”

Ali nods, personal lives were one thing, and Kingsman was another.

“And do you think you will be able to settle into things? Are there things you are struggling with?”

“God, are there? Not only do I have all the bullshit from the last year, but I have lost my legs. Which, usually, I can accept, but there are days when I can’t, and I think as I get used to be around people again, I will have more of them. I just think it’s a good idea that Harry and I move slowly, that we just don’t jump back into what we were before Kentucky because we are not that Harry and Ian anymore. Viviane has agreed to see us, and I think it will be good. A fresh start. You might want to see her as well.”

“I called her last month. She made it clear she was not coming back to Kingsman.”

“And she’s not, but she might see some of us, and if she can’t, she may give you a referral. There’s no shame in therapy, Ali.”

“I know, it’s just hard for me, talking to someone, letting someone in.”

“It was for me as well, and now I wish I would’ve tried it sooner.” Ian stands. “I should go, I have to go the gym before I go home. I’ll be so fucking glad when the manor is finished so we can have our gym back, even if that means Claudia will chase me down to drag me to it.”

“Where are our metallic friends?” Ali asks, walking him to the door.

“I sent them to the Distillery so they could learn about their news jobs and about Kingsman. Dr. Steele, of course, will be a doctor. Claudia said she would like to continue to assist him, but also shows an interest in handling. Could be interesting.” He turns to Ali before he opens the door, holding out his hand.

Ali looks at it, takes it, and then uses it to pull himself against Ian’s chest. Their arms wrap around each other.

“I miss you, Ian. Jesus Christ, I do. To have you back and not have _you_ is killing me.”

Ian rests his cheek on Ali’s head. “I know, and I’m sorry it is like this now, Ali, but you have to understand…”

“I do, I do fucking understand, and I’m glad that you and Harry are getting this. I really am, but it hurts, Ian.”

“It’s hurting me too. I can’t stand for you to feel like this and there’s nothing I can do to make it better.”

Ali pulls away from him, his hands on Ian’s hips.

“We are friends, Ian, that will never change. I love you, and that will also never change, but I need time to move past this. Just give me some time. Let me be the one to call next time, alright?” He pulls Ian’s hand up to his lips, kisses his knuckles, and rubs his cheek against them. “I promise I will call.”

“Take all the time you need, and when you are ready, I’ll be here, and Harry, too. He loves you as well.”

“Goodbye, Ian.”

Ian pulls him back into one more hug. Part of him doesn’t want to let go. Part of him howls with how good it feels to have him in his arms again, but his heart still beats for Harry. It always will.

“Goodbye, Ali. For now.”

“Only for now.”

—————

Jason sits in the hotel bar, drinks, and stares at his phone. Champ had sent him a text last night while he slept. Just one. _Call me when you get this._ No context, no way to tell if it was going to be good news or bad, nothing.

Which is why Jason was sitting in the bar at ten in the morning drinking his breakfast instead of having pancakes with Roxy. He felt bad cancelling on her, but there was no way he was going to be able to sit there and not obsesses over a one line text, wondering what it could mean.

Wondering what he _wants_ it to mean. And that’s the shitter right there. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he wants Jack to be back on the side of good or if a part of him will be relieved if Champ just wants to tell him that the trash has been taken out.

_Fuck this._

He nods to the bartender to get another beer and then heads back up to his room. His pulse races while he waits for Champ to answer.

“This is Champ.”

No matter the news, it is nice to hear the old fucker’s voice.

“Hey, Champ. Was calling like you asked me to.”

“Tequila, it’s five in the damn morning. Harry still ain’t taught you any manners?”

“He’s trying. It’s just not taking,” he says and then takes a long pull from his beer.

“Drinking at, what is it over there?”

“Ten.”

“Jesus, Tequila, even I don’t start that early.”

“Yeah, well, some mornings just need a beer. Uh, I ain’t trying to be rude, but are you going to tell me why you wanted me to call?” He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. “Do we have a new Whiskey?”

“Not yet. That’s what I was calling you about. He’s claiming the Alpha Gel made him go a little off the deep end, but I spoke to Hart a couple weeks ago and he thinks Jack was already working against the mission before Hart shot him in the head. I’ve talked to him. Morgan has talked to him too, he’s even been doing regular therapy sessions with Jack, but neither of us know who’s winning this round of corn hole.”

Jason laughs despite his still pounding heart. “Champ, I have never heard a corn hole game used as a metaphor before.”

“I ain’t talking about the game, I’m talking about it being a metaphor for an ass fucking. That’s what they called it when I was growing up, ‘getting corn-holed,’ but that’s why I am calling you.”

“Cause I know about getting my ass fucked?”

Jason holds the phone away from his ear as Champ guffaws so loud the speaker crackles.

“Tequila, boy, you ain’t right. Now you know I don’t give a shit who you take to bed, but the fact that you were involved with Jack might make it easier to tell if he’s trying to fuck us over. I was wondering if you wanted to come home, have a talk with him.”

“I thought I didn’t need to be a part of that, an account of not being impartial.”

“I don’t think you can be, so you won’t be part of the final decision, but I also want to give that asshole a fair chance. You could see through most of his bullshit, maybe you still can.”

“Let me think about it, okay? I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Why don’t you put that beer down and go get something to eat?”

“Always the dad.”

“Damn right.”

Jason finishes his beer and picks up his phone again. “Hey, Harry. I was wondering if you were free today? I need some advice…. Great. See you then.”

Harry is in the back room of the shop, bent over manor plans, when Jason opens the door. He takes a quick moment to admire the view. Taken or not, Harry is a fine looking man, extremely fine. He has to wonder if this Harry would have given him the time of day like Butterfly Guy did. Probably not, but then Jason has hooked all types. Just got to use the right lure, and his ass is definitely the right lure.

Anyhoo… business, not pleasure. He raps his knuckles against the door despite already standing inside it.

“Harry?”

Harry whirls around and blinks at him for a minute, pushing up his glasses. Jason will be goddamned if that ain’t the cutest thing he has ever seen. If Merlin ever hurts this precious asshole that little two punch shoulder tap he gave him in Kentucky is going to look like a second grader’s first kiss.

“Jason, my apologies,” Harry says, smoothing his vest, no, his _waistcoat_ , down. Jason has learned something from all his time humoring the old guy out front as he went on about proper dressing and all that. But fuck all that. Jeans were good for him when he was a rodeo clown, they’re still good for him as a Statesmen agent.

“I brought tea,” he says, holding up the tray he has balanced in his hand.

“Wonderful… but there is only one cup, will you not be joining me?”

“Yeah, but I ain’t drinking that. Where I come from tea comes sweet and iced. Why the hell do you want your tea hot?” He reaches down next to the floor and holds out a six pack of beer. “I brought my own.”

“It’s barely one in the afternoon.”

“You know what they say, it’s five…”

“Yes, yes.”

Harry busies himself with his tea while Jason looks over the plans.

“A little grandiose isn’t it?”

“Says the man who works for the agency that has multiple skyscrapers with their name emblazoned across them.”

“Yeah, but we’re a liquor business, we're supposed to have shit like that. How do you explain a little bitty tailor shop needing all this?”

“Jason, people don’t put together the two. We are British. Most of us can barely say hello to our neighbors without muttering ‘sorry’ and scurrying inside our homes, much less go poking our noses around some grand manse that is obviously none of our business.”

Jason laughs and keeps looking at the plans. Fucking place looks like it twenty damn bathrooms. Toilets are probably gold leaf and have a machine that makes you tea while you shit.

“Are you going to moan about our extravagance or will you be polite and tell me what you needed my sage wisdom on?”

“Sage. You calling yourself old, Harry?”

“No, just experienced.”

“Champ called,” Jason says.

“Ah, and does Statesman have a new Whiskey?” Harry asks, carefully meeting his eyes.

“Not yet. Jack is saying that it was all the Alpha Gel, but Champ says that you told him you think he was working against the mission before,” Jason says, meeting his gaze dead on. “What makes you think that? I want the truth, don’t go sugar coating it for me.”

“When he, Eggsy, and I were in the cabin in Italy he purposely knocked the antidote out of Eggsy’s hand. He kept Eggsy and I separated as much as he could, he played up that I was unfit for the field, which I may have been, but not to the extent he portrayed it to be. That and I had a feeling. When you survive as long as I have as an agent you trust those feelings. He never, other than the antidote incident, hindered us per se, but he also did not help. At best he was a warm body.”

“You really think he was gone before he came for you at Poppy’s.”

“Yes, I do. But I do not believe he was working for Poppy. I don’t think he was betraying Statesmen. What I do think is that his grudge, his hatred of the drug trade and it’s users, no matter how innocent the drug may be, clouded his judgement and made him grasp at an opportunity at revenge.”

“Champ wants me to come home and talk to him, see if he is telling the truth, see if he is a danger or not. That’s what I needed advice on, if you think he can be trusted?”

“I don’t know him, Jason. I only know the man who I interacted with as someone else, who was jealous of our friendship…”

Jason snorts and takes a pull of his beer. “Fucking chapped his ass good. Both our,” he makes finger quotes here, “‘friendship’ and the fact you handed his ass to him. Still wish I could have seen that.”

“I still wish I could remember it. Something to keep me warm on a cold night. But, digression aside, I really don’t know. There is a difference between a traitor and a person who needs help with anger and mourning. Do I think Jack is a traitor? No, I do not. Do I think he is is a manipulative bastard who is narcissistic and who could use some therapy? Of course, but the same could be, and has been, said about me.”

“Surely not.”

“I was just as shocked, believe me,” Harry says, grinning at him. A small part of Jason kind of wishes he could have seen what he and Butterfly Harry could have been. But he ain’t mad, or jealous, or anything. This is where Harry belongs. One look at him and Merlin together told him that.

“He’s an asshole, I don’t need anyone to tell me that. And he loves his fucking mind games, but there is a part of him that is sweet and kind. I saw it when I was detoxing from the coke when Statesmen found me — long story, I’ll tell it some other time — and I saw it when we were whatever the fuck we were. But he also can be mean, and even abusive if you let him be. But I want to give him a chance to redeem his stupid ass, you know?”

“My advice would be, as long as it is not a risk to your mental or physical well being, is to talk to him, if for nothing but closure on your part. See if he can benefit from therapy. And if he cannot, come back to us while Champ does what needs to be done. You will always be welcome here, Jason, no matter the length of time.”

“Thanks, Harry. I appreciate this, and I appreciate your friendship. Um, I was wondering, does Merlin know we were ‘friends’ back in Kentucky.”

“Yes, actually. He knocked the shit out of Jack for laying a finger on me.”

“Is he going to knock the out shit of me for laying a finger on you?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Merlin’s voice comes from behind him, scaring the bejesus out of him and making him almost spill his beer.

“Fuck man, how the hell can you move so quietly with metal legs? Shouldn’t you squeak or something?”

“Harry keeps me oiled,” he says, meeting Harry’s stupid grin with his own, and clapping Jason on the shoulder as he walks by him, “and my name is Ian. You may call me that if you’d like.”

“Ian. Okay. I’ll try that. Eggsy doesn’t call you Ian though, why? He calls everyone else by their names but you.”

“No idea. I find it best not to ask Eggsy questions, it usually ends with a long winded explanation involving you being called ‘bruv’ multiple times, stories from his colorful youth, and hugging.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“The best, and I will kick the shit out of you if you repeat that.”

“Understood. Well, I’ll leave the beer here for you two alcoholics…”

“Takes one to know two, Jason.”

“No shit, ain’t saying it don’t. What I was saying is I am going to leave that here, and I’ll probably be heading out tonight if you can spare me.”

“Call me though? Let me know how things are progressing?”

“Sure thing, Harry.”

He stands and waits.

“Well, stand the fuck up, old man. In the South we hug the people we care about.”

He hugs Harry, shakes Ian’s hand, squeezing it just a moment longer than necessary.

“You fucking take care of him, understood?”

“Understood,” Ian says.

Jason moves forward like he is going to hug Ian as well.

“My legs are equipped with knives that can deploy that into my hands before you take your next breath. Do not push your luck.”

He does anyway.

—————

As he and Harry settle into their skin once more, as Kingsman, as people, and as a couple, Ian has to wonder if the pissy bastard got fussier after he was shot in the head. The first month they are home, living in separate flats, seeing each other everyday both in and out of therapy, has been wonderful. It is like nothing happened, that they have never been apart, and while they haven’t had full on sex yet, they were very much enjoying getting to know each other once more.

It was month two that Ian questions the wisdom of bringing Harry back instead of letting him go gallivanting off to the arse end of Canada to hunt butterflies. They are rebuilding the house in Stanhope Mews, and since it was being rebuilt from the ground up, they have the chance to make it a home that reflects both of them.

Or at least that was what Ian thought they were doing. However, standing in Ian’s flat, looking at paint chips, wallpaper samples, flooring options, and countertops that Harry had brought from the contractor, Ian realizes that Harry’s tastes have not changed a whit. In fact, he might actually be worse.

“Harry, you can’t be serious,” he says, looking at one of the wallpaper samples he has picked out, “the room will look like a fucking pillow sham.”

“I am perfectly serious. This is a lovely pattern, a classic, and it will go with a wide range of decor.”

“A wide range of decor…. This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. I refuse to spend every day of the rest of my life looking at this.”

“That is because you have the taste of a peasant.”

“That’s because I _am_ a peasant. But I don’t need a fucking large bank balance, which I do have by the way…”

“Because you inherited _my_ money.”

“It’s our money, but I don’t need that money to know that even your Aunt would be horrified by this, and she decorated that damn care home in the first place.”

“That house was lovely and you know it.”

“James and Ali called you Old Harry Hubbard because you were as fussy as an old lady.”

“They did not.”

“They did, and it suits you perfectly. Christ, can we not pick out something neutral for the walls and then you can go wank yourself to death over curtain sashes and fucking candlesticks?”

Month three finds them compromised on the walls, a very tenuous compromise, the countertops and flooring, now they are working on decor. Which means, because of course it fucking does, that Harry is dragging Merlin to every single antique store within a day's drive so he can coo over musty linens and old paintings.

_I love this man with every fiber of my being. I love him so much I nearly drank myself to death because…_

“Ian,” Harry calls, “come over here and tell me what you think of this lamp.”

Ian does as he is bid. He looks at the lamp. He finds that he cannot tell Harry what he thinks about it because if he does, Harry will beat him with it. Drinking himself to death seems a good option again.

“It’s very you.”

Harry smiles, pleased. “I thought so as well. I think it has a matching sister. I should ask the owner.”

“Two of them. A blessing from the heavens.”

“You hate it.”

“With the burning passion of a thousand suns.”

“I suppose you would be happy if we decorated the house with items purchased at _Best Buy_.”

“It would be a marked improvement on dusty relics that were ugly even when Lizzie the Virgin was on the throne.”

“This is ridiculous. You never had a problem with the house before. You lived there and never said a thing.”

“That’s because it was _your_ house, it was never ours, and they were your family’s things. It would have been rude.”

“Being rude doesn’t seem to bother you now.”

“No, because this will be _our home_ , so don’t you think it should reflect both of us? Shouldn’t be somewhere we will both feel comfortable?”

“Yes, which is why I need these lamps. They will make me feel comfortable. Don’t you want me to feel comfortable?”

Harry leaves with the lamps and Ian leaves with a migraine, but Harry gives him such a spectacular blowjob before he goes home that he knows he will have fond memories of the fucking things from now on.

Month five sees the house coming together. The framing is up, drywall attached, and within a few weeks the wall paper layers and painters will be in, and then they can have the mountains of things Harry has bought, _they_ have bought, in.

He is excited to see how the place will look between their two styles, and also a little worried the end product will be horrendous. He made Harry promise to hire an interior decorator to set up the house, knowing if Harry didn’t, his shit would be everywhere and Ian’s would be crammed into the office.

“Ian, I found our new place settings.”

“We just bought plates last week.”

“That is our everyday china, this will be for special occasions.”

“We are closing in on our sixties, Harry. How many more special occasions do we have coming?”

“Our surrogate son is marrying a princess. I am certainly not serving her dinner on something we bought for a few hundred pounds off the shelf. This is bespoke china. Fit for a queen.”

“Perfect since an old queen is buying it.”

“I will gut you while you sleep.”

“You won’t have a chance. I’ll wrap myself in those pillows you have and stand next to that hideous toile wallpaper. You’ll never find me.”

Month six sees them move in and Ian has never been happier to be wrong. The house is perfect. It’s warm and inviting, and as soon as he and Harry walk in, it feels like home. It’s not the same house they started in but it is the perfect one for them to be ending in. Ugly fucking wallpaper and all.

—————

Harry finds himself unaccountably nervous the first night they spend in their new home. For the past six months they have had their own spaces to retreat to when they fought or said something hurtful in therapy or when the memories of the past year pushed in on of them from all sides. Here they have their separate areas, Harry has the basement which he will soon fill with butterflies to mount, Ian, of course, has his office with multiple monitors, computers that most people don’t even know exist, and most importantly, sound proof walls for when Eggsy comes over.

Harry outdoes himself in the kitchen, cooking a meal for the two of them that has five courses, pudding, and after dinner drinks. While Harry cooks, Ian sits at the counter and fiddles with one of his legs which Harry supposes most people would find off putting but Harry finds it so _Ian_ that he tears up. He notices that Ian’s eyes look a bit bright the few times he looks up, but neither of them say anything.

After dinner, they sit together on the couch, watching some show Harry couldn’t care less about, Harry curled into Ian’s side while Ian runs his hand through Harry’s hair.

“I think this was one of the things I missed the most while I thought you were gone,” Ian says.

“Crap telly and a glass of bourbon?”

“No, you next to me with your absurd hair and your old man cardigan. The quiet moments.”

“And here I thought you kept me around for my luscious arse.”

“No, I could see your arse whenever I wanted, you actually being quiet for more than five minutes was so rare that I treasured every time it happened.”

“I loathe you.”

“I know,” Ian says, and tips Harry’s chin up so he can kiss him.

“I’d like to say that there was something I missed, but to me you were only dead for a little over two days. I had accepted, before I remembered who you really were, that my best friend was gone. But when it came to you, I was still processing the fact that I had lost all of that. I was too angry to miss anything. But what I would have missed the most, is the way you ground me. When I am off in the clouds, buying obscenely expensive plates with 24k gold details, you say something caustic to remind me that not everyone exists in my world, or that the world doesn’t exist for me.”

“But you still buy the plates.”

“Of course I still buy the fucking plates. We are not cavemen, darling. Appearances must be kept. But the effort is appreciated. Even more so when you are grounding me after a mission gone wrong although I don’t think that will be an issue any more.”

“No, I won’t be putting you back together after you come home beaten and missing your soul. Now I will put you back together after you see a mission you sent someone on go wrong. What do you think will happen the first time you see Eggsy’s, or Roxanne’s feed go dark? Being an agent is terrifying, Harry, but watching an agent and knowing you can’t help them is a whole new level of fear.”

Harry moves into Ian’s lap, straddling him, and tips his face up so he is looking Harry in the eye. “Ian, you are not to blame for me getting shot. You couldn’t do anything to prevent it. You speaking to me in the moments before kept me calm, allowed me to be ready for it. Allowed me acceptance.” Ian tries to shake Harry off but Harry merely tightens his grip. “I am here now, as are you. We have time.”

Harry kisses him and Ian’s arms go around him, crushing Harry to his chest. Harry moans at the feeling of Ian’s tongue slipping into his mouth as one hand comes up from his back to wrap in his hair, holding him where Ian wants him. Arousal surges up his spine and back down again, pooling in his cock. He grinds down as Ian grabs his arse and grinds up.

“Tell me,” Ian says breaking the kiss, “tell me your ‘appearances must be kept,’ proper, posh twat of an arse has already made the bed.”

“The decorator did it.”

“Remind me tomorrow to send her a very large tip. Upstairs, now. I am going to lock up and when I get up there you had better be naked.”

“We haven’t had pudding.”

“Fucking Christ, Harry, pudding can wait, or would you rather have me eat it instead of you.”

“I’ll be upstairs.”

“Thank you. Jesus, you have to have an answer for everything.”

“That’s because… I’ll just be up there,” Harry finishes when he sees Ian’s expression.

Harry goes upstairs, turning the lighting low and taking off his clothes. He looks in the mirror and wonders if Ian will still find him as attractive as he once did. It’s only been a year, but a year in a padded room instead of chasing down evil masterminds has changed his body. He takes off his eye patch. Best for Ian to see exactly what he is getting.

“Christ, you’re as gorgeous as the first time I saw you naked.”

Harry turns and sees Ian in the doorway, saying at him, his cock filling out his jeans so nicely that Harry swears his tongue gets an erection.

“I would say that I hardly doubt that, but I think you are as handsome as you were the first time I kissed you. I’ve wanted you every moment since then.”

“And I you.”

“Well, strip and come have me,” Harry says as he walks over to the bed and lays down on it.

Ian strips as Harry admires every bit of his body. Ian’s physical therapy has toned him almost to the point that he was during training all those years ago. Harry’s teeth ache to sink into his abs. His legs long to wrap around Ian’s strong back, his arse cannot wait to feel those hips positioning into him.

Ian pauses when he takes off his jeans and pants.

“Harry, hey, eyes up here for a moment.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s not my face.”

“It most certainly is not, but you could bring that over here and put it in _my_ face.”

“Jesus, I am trying to be serious for a moment. Will…” Ian rubs his hands over his face, “will it bother you if I keep my legs on?”

“No, and it wouldn’t bother me if you didn’t. Does my missing eye bother you?”

“My god, of course not, Harry. Did I just not call you gorgeous?”

“You did, but you’ve always had a tendency to state the obvious,” Harry says, a sly smile on his lips. “The important question is which way will be comfortable for you?”

“On I think. Dr. Steele assured me nothing would happen if I did. That amputees often do either or depending on the situation. Mine, being actually hooked into my nervous system are even more a part of me than normal prosthetics.”

“I cannot believe you unbent yourself enough to talk about sex with Steele.”

“He’s a robot, Harry, it’s not like he’s able to feel shock. Had it been Gipson, it might have been a wee bit harder.”

“Speaking of hard.”

Ian rolls his eyes. “Always the cockslut. I’m trying to have a serious conversation and you’re over there gagging for it.”

“Your cock is distracting, always has been. Bring it over here and distract me up close.”

“Your pillow talk needs some work,” Ian says, getting on the bed and crawling over Harry.

“I just need some practice,” Harry replies and pulls Ian down into a kiss.

Both of them moan into each other's mouth at the first feeling of full body, skin on skin they have felt since the morning of the dog test.

“Jesus,” Ian breathes, mouthing at Harry’s neck, his hand running down one of the legs that rise up to his sides.

“Amen.”

“I don’t even know what to do first. I feel like some sweaty virgin with the hottest boy in school under him.”

“Well, not to sound conceited…”

“You’re such a twat. I love you so much,” Ian says, looking into Harry’s eyes. “So very much.”

Ian kisses him, soft at first until the time for softness passes. The kisses become claiming, possessive, and Harry revels in it. The feel of Ian’s tongue against his, their cocks sliding together, the feel of his thighs rubbing almost decadently against the smooth skin of Ian’s flanks.

Ian’s lips leave his mouth, kiss his jaw, and then latch on to his neck, teeth scraping against his skin.

Harry tilts his head back. “Ian,” he says, a plea. Ian bites down and Harry grabs the back of his head to hold him there. He wants the mark. It was something they could not do when Harry was an agent. Never knew when a honeypot would come along and it wouldn’t do to go to a mark’s bed wearing a love bite from another lover, but Harry is Arthur now, and as long as his suit will keep him decent, Harry doesn’t care if he is littered with Ian’s marks. He would prefer it, and Ian will wear his as well.

“Ian, darling,” Harry pants as Ian grinds down, “as much fun as this is, and while I would _love_ to revisit this at another time, I have spent the past few months dreaming about that cock of your inside me.”

“Foreplay, Harry, this is foreplay.”

“Torture.”

Ian laughs. It makes Harry realize that he forgot what Ian sounded like when he laughed in bed and makes him grateful all over again that he gets to hear it once more.

“Roll over for me, Harry.”

Harry does, expecting a tongue up his arse and very much looking forward to it but Ian laces his hand into Harry’s hair, forcing his head down so he can bite at Harry’s neck. His other hand slips beneath Harry’s chest, pinching at his nipple making Harry arch up into the teeth that are now on his spine, on his sides, everywhere. Ian’s moved his hand lower taking hold of Harry’s cock, loosely stroking him, giving him stimulation but not nearly enough. Harry shifted his hips trying to rock into Ian’s hand, chasing more friction.

Ian bites down on his nape again, hard and Harry cries out his name.

“You called perfectly nice foreplay torture, so I thought I would show you the difference.”

“You are cruel,” Harry replies still fucking into the ever loosening grip of Ian’s hand.

Ian lets go of Harry’s hair, and unfortunately, his cock as well. Harry feels him kneeling behind him and to the side, his leg without his knee extended to the floor.

“Would you stand up?” Ian asks as he looks down at Harry bare on the bed.

“I would love to, but I don’t think I can.”

“Such a drama queen, shove over for a moment, then.”

Ian lies down in the space Harry has just vacated. Harry looks down Ian’s body admiring once more the toned muscles, and while he admits part of him misses Ian’s shapely calves, he also thinks that Ian’s new legs are so very much Ian, and as beautiful as the man who wears them, that Harry cannot help but find him even more devastating.

“Come up here and fuck my face, that is, if you think your poor legs can handle it.”

“Needs must, Ian,” Harry sniffs as he straddles Ian’s neck. His legs only shake a little.

He doesn’t immediately push in, instead he takes a moment to admire Ian’s face framed by his thighs. He grips his cock and drags the tip of it over Ian’s open, lax mouth, glossing his lips with precome. Ian’s tongue flickers out tasting both his lips and the tip of Harry’s cock. As Ian’s eyelids flutter Harry places a fingertip on Ian’s chin to open his mouth wider and slides in. He leans forward to grab the headboard with one hand while tracing Ian’s cheek with the other, craving both the contact and the feel of him sliding in and out of Ian’s mouth. Ian keeps his mouth slack on the stokes in, sucks hard on the out, and too soon Harry is lost. Ian’s hands come up, gripping Harrys arse, spreading him open so he can feel cool air over his hole before Ian’s fingers stroke over him lightly. Harry’s head falls back as he groans.

Ian continues stroking his fingers over Harry’s arsehole, pushing in with a fingertip before retreating. Harry pulls out of Ian’s mouth.

“If I don’t stop I am going to come right down your throat and I would rather come with you in me,” Harry says, his chest heaving.

Ian gazes up at him, smiling. “Look at you Harry, all disheveled, blushing down to your chest. Crawl up and little further and let me get you ready.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Come on,” Ian says, tapping his chin, “sit that pretty arse right here.”

Harry shuffles forward on legs that are truly threatening to give out now as does as he asked. Ian tongues him with soft licks around his hole at first, and then broad lapping ones. Harry tries to be polite but at the first stab of Ian’s tongue inside him he grinds down, fucking himself on Ian’s tongue.

“Oh, god, oh god… Ian, sweet Christ.”

Ian hums in agreement and resumes his methodical tongue fucking. Harry hears a snick of a cap and Ian’s slick fingers replace his tongue. Harry allows it for a moment before he pulls away.

“As much as I have missed both your mouth and your fingers, I was not joking when I said I was close. Slick yourself for me, darling, so I can slide down you.”

Harry moves back down Ian’s body, leaning over him and kissing him while he slicks his cock, using his other hand to push some lube into Harry. Ian pushes Harry’s hips down slightly and raises his own until Harry can feel him slowly pushing in, pulling out, and then going in again, inch by inch, opening Harry up with his cock. Harry grips Ian’s face, staring into his eyes as he works his way into the Harrys body, reclaiming his place, reclaiming Harry.

Ian doesn’t look away, keeping eye contact with Harry even when his eyes want to shut in pleasure as the tight clench of Harry’s body grips him.

“I dreamed about you every night,” he says, looking into Harry’s eye. “Every night I would dream only to wake up and find you gone.”

Harry kisses the tear that escapes Ian’s eyes. “I'm here now, and I am never going anywhere again.”

Harry raises up and Ian lifts his legs behind him to give him support, their hands clasp as Harry drags himself up and down Ian’s cock.

“No one has ever made me feel the way you do, Ian. No one has ever loved me the way you do.” He moves faster, he lets go of Ian’s hands to reach back and grab his knees. Ian’s stiffens when Harry’s hand’s meets one side flesh and the other side metal.

“You are perfect,” Harry says as he strokes both knees. “You are perfect. Faster now, Ian, faster.”

Ian grips Harry’s hips, drawing him down to meet the quick thrusts up Ian is making. Harry’s legs are shaking, his head is back, and he is chanting Ian’s name again and again.

“Are you going to come for me, Harry? Come all over me? Mark me like I am going to mark you from the inside? Will you rub it into the skin of my stomach, make sure everyone can smell you on me?”

“Fuck, yes, everyone will know you're mine.”

“Everyone already does.”

—————

Ian feels Harry’s orgasm coming before it happens. His inner muscles tighten around him as if they are determined to hold Ian exactly where he is. He holds Harry still now, the movement coming from him only. Harry comes so hard that it covers Ian’s stomach, some hitting him in the chin, but it is the death grip Harry still has on his knees, both of them, the acceptance, the love that it shows, that sends Ian pounding into him, calling Harry’s name as he empties himself inside of him.

Harry collapses down and kisses Ian with lazy indulgence, his eyes shut, his heart pounding against Ian’s chest where he squirms against him rubbing his come into their chests.

Harry for all his fine suits and pretty words is a filthy lay.

“Not bad for two old men,” Ian says once he catches his breath.

“Speak for yourself, I’m not old in the slightest,” Harry replies against Ian’s neck where he as tucked his head.

Ian strokes Harry’s back, calming him. “You’re older than I am, Harry.”

“Disgusting lies.”

Ian laughs, quiet and intimate, and leans his head against Harry’s, his nose in Harry’s hair.

“No matter how old you get, you will always be the most handsome man in the entire room.”

“Too fucking right. And you will be the second.”

—————

**Nine months later**

Eggsy is waiting for them as they come off the plane, Tilde next to him, and as Harry scans the area, he can see multiple body guards placed in a loose circle around them. Unobtrusive, most likely due to Tilde’s insistence, but there. Harry is positive Eggsy could handle most issues that would come up as he is also positive Eggsy is armed at all times, but still, knowing his boy, and now his royal girl, are well protected eases his heart.

“Your Highness,” Harry greets Tilde with a small bow.

“Will we have to go through this every single time, Harry? Tilde, please. Save the ‘Your Highness’ shit for when we are in public.”

“Tilde,” Ian says behind her, accepting the hug that she gives him, and Eggsy’s one following, with as much grace as Ian can muster.

“I will hug you, Harry, when you address me properly.”

“My apologies, Tilde,” he says, and takes his hug.

“Pretty soon we’ll have you calling her Til, yeah?”

“I think not.”

“Well, come on,” Eggsy says, grabbing two of their bags and waving the chauffeur forward to help them with the rest.

“You seem to have settled in quite well, Eggsy,” Harry says, eyeing the chauffeur.

“Whatever, bruv, didn’t have any choice. Every time I try to do something myself, Til’s dad looks at me like I have personally offended the entire fucking country. I got to blend in, but it doesn’t mean I have to be a twat.” He nods at the chauffeur. “Thanks, Oscar.” He leans over to Harry and Merlin once they get in the car. “The staff loves me.”

“That is because Eggsy sneaks down and plays cards with them after Mama and Papa go to sleep.”

“Kingsman taught me that. Always make friends with the staff, they know all the fucking dirt. The things they told me about Til here would make Harry blush.”

Ian raises his eyebrows. “I doubt that, Eggsy, but I would be happy to trade stories while these two discuss flowers or whatever the hell they have been texting about for the past three weeks.”

“You’re on, Merlin. I’ll even let you play that shit music you like so much.”

“And to think I haven’t liked you all this time.”

Eggsy kicks Ian in the shin, winces, and rubs his toe. “Fuck, Merlin, those damn things made of metal?

“As a matter of fact they are,” Ian answers, not looking up from his tablet, where no doubt — despite Harry’s plan to leave the fucking thing at home it still ended up in Ian’s hands on the plane — he is communicating with the tech team at the distillery and the contractors at the manor. He is smiling with half his face, however, which for Ian, is almost a full grin.

Eggsy’s laughter fills the car and it is that, along with the warmth of Ian next to him, and the wedding they are about to attend, makes him realize that he is exactly where he is supposed to be, and he couldn’t be happier.

—————

Ian and Eggsy sit in his and Harry's room, a bottle of bourbon on the table between them, John Denver playing in the background while Eggsy listens to it without more than three smart remarks, and a game of poker laid out between them. Ian is kicking Eggsy’s arse clear across the castle.

“What does your future in-laws think about your normal attire?” Ian asks, taking in Eggsy’s worn jeans, a t-shirt with _Secret Agent Man_ across it, and… painted toenails. “Did you paint your toenails?”

“Yeah, getting in touch with my feminine side, I am. You got a problem with it?” Eggsy says, not looking up from his cards.

“No, I just expected you to tend towards more autumnal colors rather than pastels.”

“You’re such a fucking wanker, Merlin. Til likes to try out different color combos on my toes. I like to make her happy, and it gives me a good laugh. The pastels are for the wedding. I think she chose the one on my pinky toe. And her parents rarely see me like this. I try to at least put an effort in when I’m here in the palace. The fucking palace, bruv, what the fuck is even my life?”

“I couldn’t tell you. If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be sitting in the palace of the princess you are about to marry, with metal legs and Harry alive but missing an eye, I would have had you committed. Yet here we are.”

“No shit. Two pair. I win.”

“About time too.” Ian gathers the cards up to deal while Eggsy tops off their glasses. “I have a favor to ask you, Eggsy.”

“Anything you need, you know that.”

“I was wondering if I could have a few moments of floor time at the dinner tomorrow. It will be the only time that it is just us, your family, before the rehearsal dinner and wedding, and I have something I would like to do.”

“You ain’t going to wrestle me or something like that are you? Remind me whose boss and all?”

“No, although now that you mention it, that’s tempting. I’m going to propose to Harry,” he says.

“Shut _up_.”

“I know after the wedding, and with the distillery and manor both being weeks away from competition, this will be the last time all of us are gathered in one place.”

“Fucking hell, Merlin,” Eggsy says, scrubbing at his eyes. “Of course you can have a few minutes. You can have an hour. I’ll, uh,” Ian watches Eggsy go through the event’s time table in his head, “announce that you want to say a few words between the main course and dessert. Hows that?”

“Perfect. Hopefully he will say yes.”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Eggsy, jumping to my defense already? I’m almost touched.”

“Nah, mate, Tilde will kill him for turning you down. She just thinks you two are the most romantic thing that has happened since Darcy and Elizabeth or some shit.”

“Please do not tell Harry that. He is a fucking mess over anything Austen. Christ, we will never get them apart.”

“More time for booze and cards then.”

—————

Ian knows Harry is going to say yes, of course he will, but that hasn’t stopped his stomach from churning with nerves all fucking day.

“Are you alright, Ian?” Harry asks as he adjusts his tie. “You look even more sour than normal today.”

“Piss off, I don’t look sour.”

“Menacing?”

“Who the hell do I have to menace here?”

“Irritated then.”

“I’m only irritated because you keep asking me idiotic questions.”

“Do you need a nap, darling? Most children are in far better spirits once they have taken one. Shall I tell Eggsy we will be late?”

“No, I don’t need a fucking nap. You know how I hate wearing shit like this. Eggsy would be fine with me wearing a jumper.”

Harry comes over to him, looking every inch a gentleman in his charcoal suit with a subtle grey pinstripe. He’s forgone a tie in deference to Eggsy request that they not look like they are working, and the top two buttons are undone, showing just a hint of collarbone that makes Ian’s teeth ache. Ian isn’t wearing a jacket, but he has on a navy waistcoat with matching trousers, and a white shirt.

“Ian, do not deprive me of seeing you like this, it happens so rarely. The navy brings out the green in your eyes and the waistcoat makes me think delightful, filthy things. Things I plan on acting out as soon as we get back.”

“I suppose I hate it a little less now, but I still fucking hate it.”

“Don’t be such a pissant. If you make nice throughout dinner, I’ll pull you into an alcove and blow you. Happy?”

“Depends on how well you blow me.”

Harry doesn’t even notice he isn’t wearing the ring any longer. Super spy his arse.

The “family dinner” is a small affair, consisting of Eggsy’s mum and his baby sister, he and Harry, Roxanne, Alistair, Jamal, Liam, who were brought into the Kingsman need-to-know fold after the loss of Brandon, Champ, Jason, and Ginger. They are in one of the many palace rooms, at a long round dining table. Serving staff bustle in and out with food and drink while soft music plays in the background. Harry almost shits himself with pride over seeing his boy in this setting.

Ian is positive that the food that passes between his lips is exquisite but all Ian can think about is when Eggsy will stand up and say…

“If everyone will give him the floor, Merlin has a few things he wants to say.”

Ian stands and looks at everyone looking back at him. He goes down on one knee. The metal one, proposal or not, his real one is much too old to be kneeling on hard floors as he waxes poetic to the man he loves.

“Harry, every moment we have had together has been fought for and won. While I battled my own inner demons, you were there, always standing beside me as my strongest supporter, never pressuring me for more than I was willing to, or could, give you even when that meant tearing yourself to pieces to do so. Thankfully, when I finally pulled my head out of my arse, you were still there, willing to give me one more chance to be the man you deserved.

“So I ask you, Harry, to fight with me one more time. I ask that you walk into one more battlefield with me because I know the Universe isn’t done with us yet. I know there is more pain and heartache before us, but I also know that as long as you are by my side there will also be joy, and laughter, and love. I know that every battle we face we will emerge victorious because we are never stronger than when we are together.” His face it wet with tears and his hand shakes as he draws out the ring, ready to place it where it has belonged since the day he bought it. “Harry, please allow me to continue to become the man who deserves you. Please allow me to make you my husband.”

Harry’s hand, which also trembles, reaches out to brush his wet cheeks before settling on his hand that holds the ring.

“Ian, you absurdly grouchy and romantic man. You say that you are the one who has to become the man who deserves me, but I would also say that I have to be the man who deserves you. If I am your pillar of support, you are the foundation on which I stand. You have put me back together in so many ways over the years, you have kept a part of me safe so that I could rebuild when I came home. You _are_ my home. For a man like me, who is no better than a feral child half the time, to have someone that puts up with my bullshit and forces me to be better is something I wonder if I deserve every day. And yet here you are, asking me to marry you.

“If you recall, and you should if I am able to remember it,” the room laughs around the sniffling he hears, “I answered you in the letter I left with my ring, _that_ ring, but just for the pleasure of doing so, I will say it now to your face. Yes in this lifetime, yes in the next, and yes in the all ones that must have come before this one and all the ones that come after, for what we have is too strong to only get one life in which to experience it.”

Ian slips the ring on Harry’s finger and looks at it for a moment, resting where it was always meant to be.

_—————_

**Eggsy’s Wedding Day**

Ian slips into the room where Harry stands with Eggsy, no doubt giving him some speech that is pretentious and fatherly. It makes Ian sad that they never had a chance to have a child of their own, but they have Eggsy, and they have Roxanne, and now that Eggsy’s mum has decided she doesn’t hate Harry as much as she thought she did, they even have Daisy once in a while. Uncle Harry and Uncle Ian, and even Ian has to admit that as much as he hates children, there has never been one so angelic and sweet as Daisy. Whoever doesn’t agree with that can tell it to the business end of Ian’s metal foot when he plants it in their arse.

Ian steps up behind them just as they are about to leave the room.

“Eggsy,” he says, gripping the lad’s shoulders. “I just wanted to say that I think that Lee would’ve been very proud of you. I know Harry and I are. You exasperate us, and drive us up the nearest fucking wall, but you constantly surprise us and make us happy that we have your in our lives.”

“Fucking hell, Merlin,” Eggsy says, sniffling and pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket, “I can’t go out there looking all red in the face.” Eggsy wipes his face and then pulls Ian into a hug, which Harry soon joins.

Ian almost lost this. All of it, and yet this is what he died to protect. It was worth it. Everything has been worth _this._

Eggsy pulls back and then looks at them both.

“Are you two taking the piss? You matched your kilt to Harry’s fucking trousers?”

“My pants as well,” Harry says, smiling.

“And you, do your fucking pants match?”

“I’m Scottish and wearing a kilt. I’m not wearing any pants.”

“Oh my god. You’re walking around with your cock out at my wedding.”

“It’s not _out_ , Eggsy. I wouldn’t want to make you look bad on your wedding night.”

“Jesus, can we just go out now, you know, so I can get married?”

“Of course, Eggsy,” Harry says, patting him on the shoulder.

As they get to the door, Eggsy turns and looks at them. “I’m proud to have you both here. You said he would be proud of me, but I also think that he would be proud to have you both standing in his place. I love you two, even if you are the most embarrassing arseholes I know.”

That night they sit and watch Eggsy dance at his wedding. Both of them thinking that soon it will be their wedding, and Eggsy will stand up for Harry just as Harry stood up for him.

They are together now, and, as the marriage vows they will soon say to each other state, they will remain so until death, whenever that may come for them. Neither of them are frightened of it. They have met death and they have come back to the other’s side. When it comes again, when it finally sticks, they still will not be afraid. They will see each other in the next life and the one after that.

Dying has taught them both one very important thing.

Their love is immortal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, sadly, that is the end. 
> 
> I promised a happy ending for most of our sweet spies, and most of them got it. Alistair, however, did not. I didn't intend on leaving him out in the cold when I started this fic. When he decided he was jumping back in bed with Ian, I warned him it was not a good idea. When he fell in love I may have yelled a bit because there was no good way this was ending for him. I have always had a soft spot for our fandom's favorite sniper (which we have all collectively decided he is) and him playing a much larger role in this fic made me love him even more. I want to come back later, possibly, and write a Percilot fic in this universe, but it makes me sad because there is NO way that can end happily. And I want Ali to be happy. Badly. And if I can come up with a happy ending for him I will come back and give it to him post-haste.
> 
> Tequila and Whiskey are also left open and unresolved because I have also toyed with a fic about them here as well and I didn't want to write myself into a corner. I REALLY enjoyed writing them, much more than I expected to.
> 
> I am marking this series complete but I am not discounting the idea that I may come back for a few one shots of some of the characters in this universe just because I love them and this world so much. It breaks my heart a little to be "done" with it.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, kudos-ing and commenting, and those of you who have waited a year for this third part to post, thank you for being patient. I hope you found the ending satisfying and worth it :) I love the shit out of all of you!

**Author's Note:**

> Harry fixing the butterfly was inspired by this [post](https://solarrift.tumblr.com/post/169689302717/vampireapologist-notworblacosplay).
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required. 
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://violyntfemme.tumblr.com).
> 
> Song lyrics in this fic are from _Goodbye, Again_ and _Take Me Home, Country Roads_ by John Denver.


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